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I     NATIONAL 
lUBR&RTf  BINDLRT 

IwESTSPWHGFIElD, 
I  EASTCLEVEUNO  I 
I   INOIANAPOUS    I 


Cije 


Alumnae  <kuavttvly 


Nfluembfr,  1934 


=§\ 


till* 

Alumnar  (fuarfrrlg 


Publisfieb  bp  the 

Jkott  Blumnae  Sls&octatum 

Decatur,  <®a. 


3  /J""  *  ^ 


Cfje  Ulgnes;  Jkott  jHllumnae  akuarterlp 

Published  in  Nov.,  Jan.,  April  and  July  by  the  Agnes  Scott  Alumnae  Association 
Entered  as  second  class  matter  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  August,  1912. 

Volume  XIII  November,  1934  Number  1 

TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Officers  of  the  Association 2 

Founder's  Day  and  Our  Fourth  Alumnae  Week-End 5 

Clara  (Whips)  Dunn,  '16 

A  Message  from  the  Association  President 6 

Frances  (Craighead)   Dwyer,  '28 

Department  of  the  Home 7 

Dr.  J.  R.  McCain 

A  Critique  of  Our  Colleges 9 

Richard  A.  Lester 

Phi  Beta  Kappa  Prospects  at  Chicago  Under  the  New  Plan      .  ...      13 

C.  S.  Boucher 

Social  Trends  and  Social  Goals 18 

Cleveland  Zahner,  ex-'07 

Mariam  (McCamy)  Sims 21 

Irene  Lowrance,  '28 

Pastels 22 

Leonora  (Owsley)  Herman,  Institute 

New  Addresses 23 

Weddings 27 

Births 30 

Faculty  News 31 

Office  News 32 

Class  News 3  5 

Message  from  the  Publicity  Committee Back  Cover 

Janef  Preston,  '21 


Cora    (Morton)   Durrett,  '24, 

Alumnae  Trustee 
Dorothy  Hutton,   '29, 

Executive  Alumnae  Secretary 


Elinor  Hamilton,  '34, 

Field  Alumnae  Secretary 
Frances  (Craighead)  Dwyer,  '28, 

Alumnae  President 


FOUNDER'S  DAY  AND  OUR  FOURTH 
ALUMNAE  WEEK-END 

Dear  Agnes  Scotter  Everywhere: 

We  know  you  are  going  to  like  our  new  plan  for  Alumnae  Week-End.  You  see 
everybody  kept  getting  busier  and  busier  around  Thanksgiving  time, — what  with  beaus, 
and  dances,  and  turkey,  and  football  games,  and  children  out  of  school  and  underfoot 
and  wanting  to  be  taken  here,  there,  and  yonder,  and  college  girls  home  to  be  fed  and 
entertained,  etc.,  etc.  It  was  next  to  impossible  for  many  of  us  to  come  back  at  Thanks- 
giving time.  Since  someone  had  the  very  bright  idea  to  combine  the  Founder's  Day 
celebration,  which  is  after  all  a  very  particularly  Agnes  Scottish  occasion,  with  our 
Alumnae  Home-Coming,  the  College  is  asking  us  every  one  to  come  back  for  Friday 
and  Saturday,  February  the  twenty-second  and  twenty-third. 

And  what  grand  things  they  have  in  store  for  us! — On  Friday  night  the  regular 
Founder's  Day  banquet  and  radio  program — only  a  bigger  and  better  one  than  we  ever 
have  had.  Then  on  Friday  morning  and  Saturday  morning  we  are  going  to  try  to  get 
"edicated"  all  over  again!    Imagine! 

Just  listen  to  this!    This  is  a  part  of  the  program: 

FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY  22 
10:00  A  M. — Miss  Emma  May  Laney,  Agnes  Scott. 
10:40  A.  M. — Dr.  Philip  Davidson,  Agnes  Scott. 
11:20  A.M. — Dr.  Mercer  Evans,  Emory  University. 

SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY  23 

10:00  A.  M. — Dr.  Leroy  Loemker,  Emory  University. 

10:40  A.  M. — Dr.  B_oy  R.  Kracke,  Emory  University. 

11:20  A.  M. — Dr.  George  P.  Hayes,  Agnes  Scott. 

The  very  best  part  I  am  saving  for  the  last!  You  don't  even  have  to  leave  Susie  or 
Johnnie  or  Tommie  or  Baby  Sister  at  home!  For  on  Saturday  morning  the  College  will 
take  your  children  and  give  them  the  very  best  time  they  ever  did  have,  all  while  you 
get  educated!  They  will  have  games  and  stories  and  plays  all  most  scientifically 
worked  out.    And  at  noon  on  Saturday  there  will  be  a  special  luncheon  in  the  Tea  Room. 

They  are  going  to  send  us  reading  lists,  so  we  can  be  brushing  the  cobwebs  off  our 
brains  and  getting  all  ready  for  lectures. 

Do  write  us  and  tell  us  how  you  like  our  plans. 

Yours  for  the  grandest  of  grand  Week-Ends, 

Clara  (Whips)  Dunn,  '16, 
Chairman  of  the  Curriculum  Committee. 


A  MESSAGE  FROM  THE  ASSOCIATION  PRESIDENT 

Frances   (Craighead)   Dwyer,  '28 

Let  me  thank  you  first  of  all  for  having  elected  me  president  of  the  Alumnae  Associa- 
tion. I  shall  do  my  utmost  during  the  two  years  of  my  office  to  advance  the  interests  of 
the  Association. 

To  the  new  members  of  the  Alumnae  Association,  our  1934  graduates,  I  wish  to  ex- 
tend the  sincerest  greeting.  You  are  our  closest  link  to  the  College  and  it  is  from  you 
that  we  want  suggestions  as  to  how  the  Alumnae  Association  can  better  cooperate  with 
the  student  body  and  its  projects. 

All  alumnae  are  interested,  I  am  sure,  in  what  the  Association  has  done  so  far  this 
year.  As  your  representative  I  extended  the  welcome  from  the  Alumnae  Association  to 
the  new  students  and  to  those  returning  to  the  campus  for  the  1934-3  5  session.  On  the 
first  Friday  after  school  opened,  the  Association  entertained  the  freshmen  at  tea  at  the 
Alumnae  House.  Augusta  (Skeen)  Cooper,  Entertainment  Chairman,  planned  a  beautiful 
party.  Printed  invitations  were  sent,  and  alumnae  from  the  Decatur  and  Atlanta  clubs 
called  for  the  freshmen  and  escorted  them  to  the  party.  Over  two  hundred  students  and 
alumnae  called  during  the  afternoon. 

On  Wednesday,  October  17,  the  Alumnae  Association  entertained  the  members  of 
the  Granddaughters'  Club  and  their  mothers  at  the  Alumnae  House.  Augusta  (Skeen) 
Cooper  and  her  committee  planned  a  seated  tea,  and  the  members  of  the  Executive  Board 
and  the  Entertainment  Committee  acted  as  hostesses. 

The  local  clubs  are  sending  in  excellent  reports  of  their  meetings  and  outlines  of 
their  plans  for  the  year.  Several  have  book  reviews  on  their  programs,  with  the  members 
participating;  some  of  the  larger  clubs  have  outside  speakers.  Any  group  of  five  Agnes 
Scotters  can  form  a  club  by  communicating  with  Dorothy  Hutton  or  Mary  Shepherd,  of 
Sewanee,  Tenn.,  Chairman  of  Local  Clubs. 

A  change  has  occurred  in  the  Tea  Room  management  which  was  made  only  after 
lengthy  deliberation  on  the  part  of  the  Executive  Board  and  the  Tea  Room  Committee. 
Instead  of  running  the  Tea  Room  ourselves,  and  paying  the  manager  a  stipulated  salary, 
we  have  rented  it  for  $400.00  for  the  year  to  Nelle  Barnett  of  Sharon,  Ga.  She  is  run- 
ning the  Tea  Room  very  satisfactorily  and  is  delighting  the  nearby  alumnae  and  faculty 
with  her  teas  and  luncheons.  Though  we  are  assured  of  our  monthly  rental,  we  must  still 
support  and  patronize  our  tea  room  so  that  in  the  future  we  can  either  increase  the  rent, 
or  run  it  on  a  commission  basis  with  a  higher  return  to  the  Association.  When  in  Decatur 
or  Atlanta,  lunch  in  the  Tea  Room! 

The  Executive  Board,  at  its  September  meeting,  voted  to  combine  Alumnae  Week-End 
and  Founder's  Day  activities  this  year.  Alumnae  Week-End  will  occur  February  22-23 
with  the  Founder's  Day  banquet  on  Friday  evening,  February  22,  as  the  high  point  of 
the  week-end.  Clara  (Whips)  Dunn  has  planned  a  program  that  is  new  and  different. 
Please,  Alumnae,  come  back  to  the  campus  for  this  Home  Coming — our  first  Home  Com- 
ing that  has  occurred  on  Founder's  Day. 

Presidents  of  local  clubs,  encourage  your  members  to  attend  Alumnae  Week-End. 
Make  up  cars  and  drive  to  Agnes  Scott  for  Home  Coming.  It  will  add  new  enthusiasm 
to  your  local  clubs  and  will  make  Alumnae  Week-End  a  worthwhile  event. 

A  letter  from  your  alumnae  president  would  be  incomplete  without  a  reference  to 
alumnae  dues  of  $2.00  per  year.  Let  me  remind  you  of  the  benefits  you  get  from  your 
$2.00:  four  issues  of  the  Alumnae  Quarterly  which  is  carrying,  in  addition  to  news  of 
ourselves,  outstanding  articles  taken  from  other  leading  college  publications;  an  invita- 
tion to  the  Trustees'  Luncheon  in  June;  reading  lists  based  on  our  curriculum  for  Alum- 
nae Week-End;  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  you  are  having  a  very  definite  part  in 
maintaining  the  Anna  Young  Alumnae  House  and  the  beautiful  Alumnae  Garden. 


DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  HOME 

J.  R.  McCain 

For  many  years  Agnes  Scott  College  has  dreamed  of  doing  a  distinctive  piece  of 
work  for  home  makers  in  the  South.  Dr.  F.  H.  Gaines,  the  first  President  of  the  College, 
thought  of  the  plan  and  talked  of  it  frequently  before  he  died.  Other  officers  of  the 
College  and  members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  have  carefully  considered  the  suggestion 
and  feel  that  it  would  be  the  greatest  single  contribution  which  any  institution  may  now 
make  to  the  educational,  social,  and  economic  life  of  the  country. 

As  is  well  known,  women  are  influential  factors  in  most  important  phases  of  the  life 
of  any  household.  The  expenditure  of  perhaps  eighty-five  per  cent  of  the  money  of  any 
home  is  in  the  hands  of  the  woman  who  presides  in  that  home.  The  physical  well-being 
of  every  member  of  the  household  is  dependent  upon  the  wise  planning  of  the  wife  or 
mother  in  providing  a  balanced  diet  that  is  nourishing.  The  growth  and  education  and 
training  of  any  children  that  may  bless  the  household  are  largely  in  her  hands.  The 
eternal  destiny  of  most  of  them  will  depend  upon  her. 

Recognizing  the  fact  that  the  woman  is  dominant  in  the  well-being  of  the  community 
and  that  relatively  little  training  has  been  given  to  women  for  the  fulfillment  of  their 
high  destiny,  Agnes  Scott  would  like  to  establish  a  unique  department  of  training  for 
women  who  are  to  be  potential  home  makers. 

We  would  like  in  this  department  to  teach  women  about  themselves,  drawing  out 
of  our  department  of  Physiology  and  Hygiene  such  information  as  would  bear  directly 
on  the  nature  of  a  woman's  body  and  the  processes  which  are  necessary  to  develop  it  to 
its  most  effective  use  in  living  a  joyful  life  and  in  bearing  children  with  the  least  possible 
stress  on  Nature's  reserve. 

We  would  like  to  teach  our  students  about  the  coming  of  a  baby,  about  its  prenatal 
and  after  birth  care.  We  would  give  special  attention  to  the  nourishment  of  the  baby 
and  the  habit-forming  experiences  of  the  very  early  days. 

It  is  our  purpose  to  include  in  the  work  of  this  department  strong  courses  in  Child 
Psychology  and  in  Education  so  that  the  mother  may  understand  the  development  of  her 
child's  mind  and  may  direct  it  in  wholesome  ways.  For  example,  we  would  like  to  teach 
mothers  at  what  age  to  tell  Nature  tales  to  their  children,  when  to  begin  with  hero 
stories,  how  Bible  and  other  religious  teachings  may  be  employed,  when  catechisms  or 
other  memorizing  may  be  effectively  started. 

Among  the  numerous  other  things  to  be  included  in  the  Department  of  the  Home 
would  be  a  careful  study  of  nutrition,  of  foods,  of  the  various  methods  of  preparation 
and  of  serving,  and  we  would  like  for  our  students  to  be  well  informed  about  all  of 


8  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

the  latest  data  as  to  the  effect  of  various  foods  on  the  higher  cell  structure  of  the 
body  as  well  as  on  the  stomach.  We  would  like  for  those  who  take  work  in  this  Depart- 
ment to  become  themselves  good  cooks. 

Still  another  phase  of  the  work  will  be  in  making  the  family  budget.  More  homes 
are  wrecked,  so  statistics  say,  on  the  economic  difficulties  experienced  than  on  any  other 
ground.  We  would  like  to  train  our  girls  in  making  out  family  budgets  whether  the 
income  of  the  home  is  to  be  $1000  or  $10,000.  We  would  like  to  teach  them  something 
of  the  values  and  weaknesses  of  the  installment  buying  plan.  We  would  like  to  inculcate 
a  wholesome  fear  of  debt.  We  wish  to  emphasize  the  value  of  regular  and  sacrificial 
saving. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  Agnes  Scott  to  include  in  its  Department  of  the  Home  instruc- 
tion as  to  beautifying  the  place  where  so  much  of  the  family  life  is  spent.  We  would 
include  courses  in  household  decoration,  in  sanitation,  in  the  simple  elements  of  art  and 
other  related  subjects.  We  would  like  also  to  include  some  elementary  training  in  the 
making  of  flower  and  vegetable  gardens  and  the  value  of  such  in  the  training  of  young 
people. 

No  college  or  university  in  this  country  has  any  such  department  as  we  are  planning. 
We  believe  that  it  would  prove  to  be  of  untold  value,  not  merely  to  those  who  might 
come  to  Agnes  Scott  as  students  but  to  young  people  throughout  the  country,  many 
of  whom  perhaps  may  never  have  the  privilege  of  going  to  any  college.  If  we  can  de- 
velop such  principles  and  ways  of  doing  things,  other  groups  and  other  individuals  will 
surely  benefit  by  our  work.  Only  in  an  institution  where  the  whole  experiment  can  be 
carried  on  under  the  auspices  of  Christian  faith  and  simple  religious  life  can  there  be 
hope  for  a  well-rounded  and  fully  developed  type  of  training. 

In  order  to  establish  this  Department,  there  ought  to  be  a  building  into  which  may 
be  gathered  the  various  materials  necessary  for  the  working  out  of  the  different  points 
of  emphasis,  and  it  will  be  necessary  for  the  Department  to  be  well  endowed  so  as  to 
help  in  securing  extraordinary  teachers  and  instructors  for  the  work. 

We  feel  that  the  time  is  at  hand  when  this  Department  ought  to  be  put  into  operation. 
We  are  fully  convinced  that  the  time  is  ripe  for  such  training.  The  only  essential  is  to 
find  some  individual  or  individuals  who  can  vision  the  value  and  importance  of  such  a 
project  and  will  help  us  to  make  it  a  reality. 


A  CRITIQUE  OF  OUR  COLLEGES 

Richard  A.  Lester 

Department  of  Economics,  Princeton  University 

(Published  here  through  the  courtesy  of  The  American  Scholar, 

Phi  Beta  Kappa  publication.) 

A  Carnegie  Foundation  report,  issued  in  the  spring  of  1933,  condemned  the  lack  of 
cooperation  and  the  unnecessary  duplication  existing  between  educational  units  in  this 
country.  At  the  same  time  an  entire  issue  of  the  journal  of  Higher  Education  was  de- 
voted to  the  need  of  coordination  in  higher  education  and  to  the  methods  by  which  that 
could  be  accomplished.  In  the  leading  article  Samuel  P.  Capen,  Chancellor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Buffalo,  stated  that  our  colleges  and  universities  are  more  autonomous  and 
self-contained  than  such  educational  institutions  anywhere  else  in  the  world  with  the  re- 
sult that  American  educational  history  of  the  past  three  decades  is  filled  with  "the  con- 
flicts, the  wasteful  duplications,  the  indefensible  compromises,  and  the  narrow  pro- 
vincialisms" which  are  as  familiar  as  they  are  unnecessary.  To  Chancellor  Capen  the 
waste  of  such  needless  duplication  is  so  enormous  as  to  constitute  "an  incomparable  chal- 
lenge" to  leaders  of  education  in  this  country. 

The  Yale  School  of  Law  and  the  Harvard  School  of  Business  Administration  are  at- 
tempting to  meet  that  challenge  and  to  initiate  a  much-needed  reform  in  intercollegiate 
relationships.  A  four-year  course  in  law  and  business,  one  year  at  Harvard  and  three  at 
Yale,  was  announced  and  hailed  as  a  "new  departure,"  the  "first  course  of  its  kind  in  the 
country,"  and  a  "novel  experiment  in  American  education."  That  it  should  be  so  excep- 
tional for  colleges  and  universities  in  this  country  to  cooperate  instead  of  to  duplicate 
in  matters  educational  is  shocking,  and  surely  is  as  much  an  indictment  as  a  challenge. 
American  business  may  merge,  combine,  and  intertwine,  have  subsidiaries,  affiliates,  and 
interlocking  directorates,  but  American  colleges  and  universities  still  exist,  like  that  well- 
known  mythological  character,  the  rugged  individual,  in  a  state  of  splendid  isolation. 

Of  course  our  colleges  have  some  connections  with  each  other.  There  are  intercol- 
legiate athletic  contests  and  debates  and,  now  and  again,  outside  professors  are  invited 
for  a  formal  talk  or  Sunday  services.  It  is  rather  strange  though  that  the  contacts  be- 
tween our  institutions  of  higher  learning  are  chiefly  athletic  in  nature.  And  even  such 
athletic  connections,  like  diplomatic  relations  between  sovereign  states,  are  severed  every 
so  often.  Like  sovereign  states,  certain  of  our  colleges  pursue  a  policy  of  non-recognition 
toward  other  institutions  of  higher  education.  Some  of  them  refuse  to  give  full  credit 
for  work  successfully  completed  under  another  set'  of  instructors.  Is  it  any  wonder  then 
that  our  colleges  breed  the  blind  loyalty,  the  100  per-cent-ism,  the  smugness  of  small 
minds,  so  characteristic  of  small  towns  and  isolated  communities?  We  tell  of  the  edu- 
cational value  of  travel  in  other  countries;  of  how  it  broadens  one's  outlook  to  meet 
new  people,  visit  new  places,  think  new  thoughts,  and  do  different  things.  Yet  travel 
between  our  colleges  is  confined  chiefly  to  those  undergraduates  who,  to  use  the  ver- 
nacular, don't  make  the  grade.  Though  in  Germany  it  is  the  exceptional  student  who  has 
not  been  to  at  least  three  different  universities  while  many  have  been  to  six  or  eight,  here, 
if  an  undergraduate  mentioned  that  he  had  been  to  three  universities,  the  listener  would 
surely  conclude  that  he  had  been  "kicked  out"  of  the  first  two. 

In  fact  the  powers-that-be  in  and  around  our  colleges  frown  upon  transferring.  One 
is  supposed  to  select  his  college  as  he  does  his  wife,  for  life.  The  prospective  freshman  is 
supposed  to  fall  in  love  with  but  one  alma  mater  and  to  remain  true  to  her  the  rest  of 
his  college  years — yes,  even  until  the  day  he  draws  up  his  will.  If  after  a  year  or  two 
said  undergrad  feels  that  love  has  changed,  but  not  to  kindness  toward  certain  of  his 
professors,  and  he  wishes  to  try  out  a  new  batch  of  them  he  probably  cannot  do  so 


10  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

without  losing  certain  accumulated  "credits,"  and  therefore  instead  of  transferring  he 
remains,  under  protest  so  to  speak,  at  alma  mater  number  one. 

Nor  is  it  much  easier  for  graduate  students  to  transfer.  The  same  smug  attitude  that 
permeates  the  undergraduate  college  pervades  the  graduate  schools.  Princeton,  Yale, 
and  a  number  of  other  colleges,  by  written  and  unwritten  rules  and  policies,  favor  their 
own  alumni.  Princeton  graduates  can  obtain  a  master's  degree  with  another  year  of  study 
at  Princeton  whereas  "outsiders,"  graduates  of  other  colleges,  must  either  spend  two 
years  at  Princeton  in  order  to  add  M.A.  to  their  signatures  or  they  must  pass  the  de- 
partmental comprehensive  examinations  given  to  Princeton  seniors,  comprehensive  exams 
based  on  undergraduate  courses  taught  at  Princeton.  So  to  favor  the  home-college  product 
is  to  put  a  premium  on  complacency  and  to  encourage  an  inbreeding  of  ideas. 

All  the  conditions  and  traditions  of  American  colleges  stimulate  what  might  be  called 
intellectual  incest.  It  is,  for  example,  a  good  old  American  custom  that  offspring  attend 
the  alma  mater  the  parent  once  graced  or  disgraced  with  his  or  her  presence.  There  have 
been  cases,  so  I  have  been  told  (undoubtedly  in  jest),  where  college  entrance  applications 
were  filed  before  the  birth  certificate.  Need  one  point  out  the  dangers  in  such  mores? 
Not  only  is  the  son,  from  the  time  he  learns  the  meaning  of  the  word  economics,  impreg- 
nated with  the  Taussigian  variety  which  his  Harvardian  father  received  first-hand  from 
the  founder  but  throughout  his  college  course  he  will  be  asked  to  gulp  down,  and  regurgi- 
tate for  grading  purposes,  the  contents  of  Taussig's  two-volume  magnum  opus.  Much 
the  same  conditions  exist  in  other  colleges  in  this  country  all  the  way  down  the  alphabet 
from  Akron  University  to  Yale.  In  many  departments  in  almost  every  one  of  our  uni- 
versities the  dead  or  retired  hand  of  an  outstanding  personality  still  forces  young  minds 
into  certain  channels  of  thought  and  vision,  outlook  and  opinion.  After  half  a  century 
"Sumnerology"  still  holds  sway  at  Yale  and  for  nearly  thirty  years  the  various  editions 
of  Fetter's  textbook  in  economics  introduced  the  Princeton  product  to  that  complicated 
subject. 

I  am  not  contending,  not  here  anyhow,  that  the  products  of  those  brilliant  minds 
have  become  outmoded,  that  time  has  left  their  intellectual  efforts  high  and  dry  like 
the  hulks  of  wrecked  ships  on  the  seashore.  I  likewise  realize  that  it  is  only  natural  for 
professors  who  write  textbooks  to  see  to  it  that  their  books  are  adopted  by  their  institu- 
tions and  used  not  only  in  their  own  courses  but  in  courses  given  by  their  colleagues  or 
by  their  disciples  in  other  institutions.  My  complaint  is  not  a  personal  one.  Rather  it  is 
directed  at  certain  quite  general  conditions  and  traditions  that  make  for  intellectual  in- 
breeding and  mental  dependence  in  the  colleges  of  this  country.  I  realize  that  professors, 
despite  popular  opinion  to  the  contrary,  are  quite  human.  It  is  only  natural  for  them 
to  try  to  convert  the  student  to  their  own  opinions  and  beliefs  and  to  demand  that  he 
know  the  textbook  and  their  lectures  "cold."  Bertrand  Russell  once  said:  "The  essence  of 
education  (as  we  know  it)  is  a  change,  other  than  death,  effected  in  an  organism  to 
satisfy  the  desires  of  the  operator."  I  likewise  realize  that  the  head  of  a  department  in 
building  up  his  staff — the  departmental  "farmer-in-the-dell" — will  choose  those  whose 
ideas  on  the  subject  agree  with  his  own  and  that  he  will  most  certainly  give  his  former 
students  preference.  He  knows  them  and  knows  that  they  are  well  trained — he  did  the 
job  himself.    All  this  is  to  be  expected. 

I  am  not  asking  that  professors  be  as  objective  as  joke-book  judges  or  that  they  change 
their  opinions  and  theories  each  day  as  they  change  their  clothes.  Nor  am  I  alarmed  be- 
cause the  social  sciences,  like  religion  and  literary  criticism,  are  divided  into  sects  and 
schools  of  thought.  A  variety  of  opinion  is  a  healthy  sign.  The  unhealthy  part  of  it  all 
is  that  the  student,  confined  to  one  university  and  a  hand-picked  staff  of  instructors  in 
each  department,  does  not  get  an  opportunity  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  many 
and  various  schools  of  thought  in  the  fields  in  which  he  is  especially  interested.    Although 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  11 

it  may  be  easier  to  ask  and  to  correct  quiz  questions  when  students  are  dogmatically  given 
but  one  point  of  view,  nevertheless  interest  is  whetted  and  independent  judgment  de- 
veloped by  controversy  and  a  clash  of  opinion  rather  than  by  an  absorb-it-or-flunk  in- 
struction. 

In  my  opinion  the  educational  opportunities  offered  by  the  colleges  of  this  country 
have  often  been  unduly  restricted.  To  be  more  explicit  on  this  point  I  shall  take  my  own 
case  although  the  experience  of  many  others  would  do  just  as  well.  From  my  under- 
graduate study  at  Yale  I  was  led  to  believe  that  the  definitions  and  economic  "laws" 
italicised  in  the  textbook  which  I  as  a  sophomore  memorized  for  the  ten-minute  quizzes 
were  just  about  the  last  word  in  economic  "science";  that  they  were  quite  universally 
accepted  by  enlightened  minds.  In  fact,  as  candidates  for  the  Yale  sheepskin  we  were 
convinced  that  our  economics  professors  "knew  their  stuff  cold"  and  the  professors 
themselves  seemed  inclined  to  agree  with  us.  Much  to  my  surprise  soon  after  receiving 
my  brand-new  twenty-dollar  degree  I  learned  that  the  very  things  which  these  pro- 
fessors seemed  so  sure  about  themselves  they  were  ardently  arguing  with  equally  well- 
known  professors  in  those  scientific  magazines  that  cost  $1.25  or  so  an  issue.  Had  I  not 
continued  my  studies  at  Princeton  I  probably  should  never  have  discovered  that  the  well- 
dressed  young  man  there  learns  quite  different  definitions  and  economic  laws  and  that 
students  at  Columbia  and  New  York  University  are  exposed  to  a  still  different  brand 
of  economics,  not  to  mention  the  more  radical  varieties  like  socialism,  communism,  and 
technocracy.  In  fact  there  are  as  many  schools  of  economics  as  there  are  of  psychology, 
but  I  never  suspected  it  until  Yale  "graduated"  me.  As  for  my  classmates,  I  feel  sure 
that  most  of  them  will  go  the  way  of  all  flesh  without  even  knowing  how  specialized 
their  courses  in  economics  really  were. 

Our  colleges  prescribe  required  courses.  Undergraduates  must  select  a  certain  num- 
ber of  hours  from  certain  groups  of  subjects — all  this  in  order  that  the  student  won't 
overspecialize  and  receive  a  one-sided  training.  Yet  with  such  caution  to  prevent  lop- 
sidedness  what  happens?  Not  only  is  a  lump  of  Latin  sandwiched  in  between  a  couple 
of  slices  of  Shakespeare,  not  only  is  this  departmentalized  subject  matter  seldom  well 
masticated  and  thoroughly  digested,  but  the  slices  of  Shakespeare,  for  example,  are  always 
served  by  the  same  professor  or  one  of  his  group  of  disciples.  It  is  as  though  one  were 
limited  to  a  single  kind  of  bread,  whole-wheat  or  rye,  but  not  both. 

Variety  may  be  the  spice  of  college  life,  but  it  is  the  lack  of  such  variety  that  goes  a 
long  way  toward  making  college  education  so  dull  and  unsavory.  To  have  had  for  one 
whole  year,  for  two  whole  years,  yes,  even  for  three  whole  years  the  same  sociology  pro- 
fessor or  the  same  system  of  sociological  dogma  drilled  into  one  by  constant  reiteration 
and  examination,  is  to  have  learned  from  bitter  experience  the  full  import  of  the  doc- 
trine of  diminishing  returns. 

For  intellectual  stimulation  and  growth  some  sort  of  exchange  of  ideas  and  change 
of  personalities  is  necessary.  Either  the  professors  or  the  students  should  be  constantly 
shifting  their  bases  of  operation.  Here  in  this  country  neither  circulate  to  any  extent  and 
intellectual  stagnation  and  mental  lop-sidedness  are  often  the  result.  What  our  colleges 
need  is  some  sort  of  a  medium  of  exchange  of  students  or  professors.  On  the  continent 
each  semester  sees  a  flock  of  new  faces  at  every  university.  Where  the  universities  are 
all  owned  by  the  state  a  high  velocity  of  circulation  of  students  between  institutions 
causes  no  difficulties  and  no  loss  of  precious  credits  by  those  that  transfer.  Here  in  this 
country  where  most  of  the  colleges  and  universities  are  privately  owned,  free  trade  in 
students  and  professors  would  be  harder  to  accomplish,  although  such  cooperation  between 
our  colleges  should  not  be  impossible.  We  have  specialization  and  exchange  in  other 
lines — why  not  in  college?  If  a  student  wants  to  study  under  two  well-known  profes- 
sors in  two  different  universities  why  can't  it  be  so  arranged  that  he  can  do  so  without 


12  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

being  penalized  for  having  such  a  worthy  desire?  If  he  wants  to  go  to  Princeton  and 
also  to  take  courses  in  sociology  and  anthropology,  subjects  not  to  be  found  in  the  Prince- 
ton catalogue,  why  shouldn't  he,  and  still  graduate  with  his  class? 

At  present  there  is  probably  more  swapping  of  professors  and  students  between  the 
colleges  of  this  country  and  colleges  in  foreign  countries  than  between  the  various  col- 
leges within  this  country.  We  have  visiting  professors  and  visiting  scholarships  but  the 
visitors,  except  in  summer  sessions,  usually  bring  passports  and  visas  with  them.  Why 
not  develop  the  domestic  market? 

There  is  another  phase  of  this  matter  which  should  not  be  overlooked.  In  Europe, 
where  students  change  universities  more  often  and  for  more  respected  reasons,  impartial 
outsiders  are  in  many  cases  called  in  to  give  the  final-degree  examinations.  But  in  this 
country  the  professor  decides  what  he  shall  teach,  how  he  shall  teach,  and  by  what  tests 
he  shall  prove  whether  he  has  taught  his  subject  well  and  whether  the  student  is  educated 
in  that  field.  Here,  if  a  student  criticises  the  professor's  doctrines  and  beliefs,  the  pro- 
fessor himself  determines  whether  that  criticism  is  valid,  whether  in  order  to  pass  the 
course  the  student  must  thoroughly  learn  something  which  seems  to  that  student  false. 
In  this  case  the  professor  is  the  person  who  made  the  fundamental  law  italicized  in  his 
textbook  (oddly  enough  revised  every  few  years) ;  he  is  the  accused;  and  he  is  the  judge 
who  determines  whether  the  accusation  is  valid  and  passes  out  the  sentence,  putting  the 
student  in  his  proper  place  in  the  curve  of  normal  distribution.  If  he  flunks  the  student 
there  is  no  appeal.  His  judgment  is  final.  This  means  that  college  students  in  this  coun- 
try must  concentrate  just  as  much  on  the  professor  as  on  the  subject.  Education  becomes 
partly  a  question  of  personalities,  previous  reputation,  and  resignation.  That  is  true  to 
some  extent  the  world  over,  but  whether  students  remain  for  four  years  in  the  same 
college  with  the  same  group  of  professors  doing  the  professing  and  the  examining,  more 
and  more  emphasis  is  put  upon  knowing  the  professor  instead  of  upon  knowing  the  sub- 
ject in  all  of  its  phases  rather  than  just  those  in  which  the  professor  himself  is  especially 
interested.  Petty  incidentals  and  personalities  play  a  part  all  out  of  proportion  to  their 
general  importance. 

All  this  points  to  the  need  for  cooperation  between  the  colleges  of  this  country  if  our 
college  students  are  to  receive  a  broad,  well-balanced  training,  a  proper  perspective  in- 
stead of  a  knot-hole  view  of  things.  Such  intercollegiate  cooperation  need  not  be  on  a 
national  or  regional  basis,  or  elaborately  planned,  but  it  certainly  is  needed. 

Every  year  some  American  undergraduates  spend  their  junior  year  in  Germany  and 
return  to  their  colleges  in  this  country  as  seniors.  Why  couldn't  the  same  sort  of  ar- 
rangement be  made  between  some  of  the  colleges  within  this  vast  and  varied  country 
of  ours?  Why  couldn't  arrangements  be  made  for  Stanford  or  Princeton  undergraduates 
to  spend  their  junior  year  at  Yale  and  vice  versa}  If  the  college  powers-that-be  in  this 
country  only  had  the  will  to  promote  such  an  exchange  there  are  many  ways  by  which 
it  could  be  accomplished.  And  I  assure  them  that  the  mental  vigor  and  added  educational 
opportunities  resulting  from  such  cooperation  between  their  institutions  would  be  well 
worth  the  slight  trouble  that  the  bookkeepers  in  the  dean's  offices  might  be  put  to. 
Whether  such  a  scheme  would  have  as  wholesome  an  effect  on  college  athletics  and  fra- 
ternities as  on  the  educational  aspect  of  college  life  I  leave  for  the  reader  to  decide. 


PHI  BETA  KAPPA  PROSPECTS  AT  CHICAGO  UNDER 

THE  NEW  PLAN 

C.  S.  Boucher 
Dean  of  the  College 

(Published  here  through  the  courtesy  of  The  American  Scholar, 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  publication.) 

Among  high-school  and  college  educators  greater  emphasis,  in  rapidly  increasing 
amounts,  is  being  placed  upon  substance  as  contrasted  with  forms.  This  is  evidenced 
by  the  very  significant  programs  and  activities  of  the  Progressive  Education  Association's 
Commission  on  the  Relation  of  School  and  College,  the  Educational  Records  Bureau,  the 
Cooperative  Test  Service,  the  Study  of  the  Relations  of  Secondary  and  Higher  Education 
in  Pennsylvania,  the  Every-Pupil  Contest  of  the  University  of  Iowa  in  the  high  schools 
of  the  State,  the  Committee  on  Revision  of  Standards  of  the  Commission  on  Institutions 
of  Higher  Education  of  the  North  Central  Association,  the  report  on  Comprehensive 
Examinations  in  American  Colleges  by  Edward  S.  Jones  for  the  Association  of  American 
Colleges,  and  the  New  Plan  of  the  University  of  Chicago — to  mention  only  a  few  of 
the  most  outstanding  of  such  programs  and  activities. 

In  the  Pennsylvania  Study  not  a  few  instances  were  discovered  such  as  the  following: 
on  a  comprehensive  objective  examination  given  to  seniors  a  young  woman,  about  to 
receive  her  degree  magna  cum  laude,  scored  fifth  from  the  bottom  in  a  class  of  forty- 
eight  in  her  institution  and  in  the  lowest  10  per  cent  for  the  state;  after  reviewing  the 
case  the  examiner  at  the  institution  reported  that  the  girl  was  an  ambitious  credit-hunter, 
extremely  eager  to  satisfy  her  teachers,  and  had  received  high  marks  term  by  term,  al- 
though his  inspection  showed  that  her  courses  were  mainly  those  for  which  credit  was 
notoriously  easy  to  get;  she  was  tractable,  of  pleasant  personality,  very  religious,  and  ap- 
parently had  put  the  faculty  completely  under  a  spell  as  to  the  validity  of  her  intellectual 
activities. 

Under  our  old  plan  of  measuring  the  student's  progress  in  terms  of  course  credits 
and  grade  points  based  on  course  marks — a  plan  still  almost  universally  employed  by  the 
colleges  of  this  country — not  a  few  students  were  elected  to  Phi  Beta  Kappa  at  the 
University  of  Chicago  because  they  judiciously  elected  "pipe"  courses  given  by  faculty 
members  who  were  notoriously  "easy"  or  high  markers  and  courses  by  some  other  faculty 
members  who  marked  not  on  genuine  intellectual  achievement  alone  but  rather  more  than 
less  on  pleasantness  of  personality,  faithfulness,  promptness,  neatness,  and  complete  con- 
formity in  routine.  Such  factors  still  enter  too  frequently  and  too  prominently  into  the 
award  of  high  marks  and  thus  the  award  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  key  in  too  many  colleges. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  belittling  the  importance  and  value  of  these  traits. 
I  merely  raise  the  question  whether  the  evaluation  of  such  traits  and  characteristics  should 
be  merged  and  confused  with  the  evaluation  of  genuine  intellectual  attainment  in  the 
award  of  course  marks  and  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  I  believe  that  it  is  important  to  have  the  eval- 
uation of  such  traits  and  characteristics  filed  regularly  for  each  student  by  each  of  his 
instructors  and  entered  in  the  student's  personnel  case  history,  but  distinct  from  and  not 
confused  with  the  record  of  student's  academic  intellectual  progress  and  attainments.  We 
have  endeavored  to  design  and  administer  our  New  Plan  at  the  University  of  Chicago 
in  such  a  manner. 

Distinguishing  features  of  the  new  plan,  inaugurated  in  the  autumn  of  1931,  for  an 
entering  freshman  class  are  the  following:  the  Bachelor's  degree  requirements  are  stated 
almost  solely  in  terms  of  educational  attainments  measured  by  two  sets  of  comprehensive 
examinations,  one  set  at  the  junior-college  level  to  test  general  education  primarily,  and 
the  other  set  at  the  senior-college  level  primarily  to  test  depth  of  penetration  and  mastery 
of  a  large  yet  special  field  of  thought  selected  by  the  student,  each  set  of  examinations  to 


14  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

be  taken  by  the  student  whenever  he  thinks  he  is  adequately  prepared,  regardless  of  how 
many  courses  he  has  pursued  or  the  length  of  time  he  has  been  in  residence;  the  old  time- 
serving routine  requirements  in  terms  of  course  credits  and  grade  points  have  been 
abandoned;  class  attendance  is  voluntary  on  the  part  of  the  student;  the  relationship  be- 
tween student  and  professor  has  been  completely  changed  by  divorce  of  the  examination 
function  (which  has  been  placed  in  the  control  of  the  Board  of  Examinations)  from 
the  instructional  function;  four  new  courses,  a  year  course  in  each  of  four  large  fields 
of  thought — the  biological  sciences,  the  humanities,  the  physical  sciences,  and  the  social 
sciences — have  been  specially  designed  to  serve  the  general-education  needs  of  the  student, 
with  a  wide  variety  of  instructional  methods  carefully  selected  and  proportioned  in  the 
light  of  the  educational  objectives  to  be  attained;  a  carefully  prepared  syllabus  with  ap- 
propriate bibliographical  citations  for  each  course  at  the  junior-college  level  is  available 
for  each  student;  a  faculty  adviser,  who  is  selected  for  each  student  in  the  light  of  educa- 
tional needs  and  ambitions,  takes  his  responsibilities  seriously  and  is  ready  at  all  times 
to  play  the  role  of  guide,  counselor,  and  friend  but  never  that  of  policeman  or  nurse- 
maid; the  term  "College"  has  been  limited  to  the  new  junior-college  program;  and  the 
senior-college  program  has  been  merged  with  the  programs  of  the  upper  divisions  and 
professional  schools.  Students  above  the  junior-college  level  are  called  divisional  or  pro- 
fessional-school students. 

One  of  the  essay  questions,  to  which  sixty  minutes  were  allotted,  in  the  June,  193  3, 
Humanities  comprehensive  examination,  was  the  following: 

"Give  a  brief  but  adequate  summary  of  the  civilization  of  the  Hellenistic  period  ac- 
cording to  the  plan  suggested  in  the  first  diagram  given  you  (in  the  syllabus)  ;  that  is, 
sketch  in  first  the  political  and  economic  background,  then  characterize  successively  the 
various  forms  of  thought  (philosophy,  science,  religion)  and  expression  (literature,  sculp- 
ture, painting,  and  architecture) .  You  are  expected  to  make  general  statements,  but  also 
to  substantiate  them  by  reference  to  definite  names  of  persons  and  places,  dates,  works, 
and  accomplishments.  Try  to  spend  at  least  ten  minutes  in  marshalling  your  facts  and 
planning  your  organization.  Organization  and  presentation  as  well  as  factual  material 
will  be  taken  into  consideration  by  the  readers." 

After  the  examination  papers  were  scored  by  the  readers  some  of  the  best  and  some 
of  the  poorest  were  read  by  three  instructors  in  the  Introductory  General  Course  in  the 
Humanities  merely  for  their  own  enlightenment  on  how  students  performed  on  the  com- 
prehensive examination  in  their  field.  These  instructors  agreed  in  the  judgment  that  any 
one  of  three  of  the  best  answers  written  by  freshmen  to  the  question  quoted  above 
could  be  substituted  for  chapters  or  sections  on  this  topic  in  not  a  few  widely  used  text- 
books with  a  resulting  improvement  of  the  text-books  in  factual  and  thought  content, 
organization,  and  literary  style. 

Last  March  we  were  in  the  midst  of  a  fervid  debate  over  the  relative  importance  of 
facts  and  ideas  in  various  fields  of  intellectual  endeavor.  This  debate,  precipitated  by  a 
convocation  address  by  President  Hutchins  in  December,  drew  the  entire  university 
community  into  participation.  For  three  months  the  student  paper,  The  Daily  Maroon, 
ran  an  almost  continuous  series  of  editorials  and  communications,  ringing  the  changes 
on  the  theme,  to  such  an  extent  that  the  factual  and  thought  content  and  the  instruc- 
tional methods  of  courses  and  the  comprehensive  examinations  of  virtually  every  de- 
partmental and  visional  field  were  searchingly  and  critically  discussed.  Even  though  not 
a  few  of  the  Maroon  criticisms  were  unfounded  in  fact  or  unwarranted  in  basic  concept, 
many  were  in  point  and  all  together  constituted  a  worthy  contribution  to  the  intellectual 
life  of  the  community  because  students  and  faculty  alike  devoted  more  critical  thought 
in  an  articulate  manner  to  all  phases  of  the  subject — education — than  the  present  writer 
has  ever  known  to  be  true  of  any  other  college  or  university  community  in  a  generation. 


The    Agnes     Scott    Alumnae     Quarterly  15 

One  debate  over  this  question  of  ideas  versus  facts,  between  two  faculty  members,  ar- 
ranged by  an  undergraduate  group  (self-started  and  self-propelled  for  the  discussion  of 
problems  in  biology),  and  scheduled  originally  in  a  class  room  seating  3  50  had  to  be 
moved  to  a  hall  seating  15  00,  so  great  was  the  demand  for  tickets,  and  even  this  lecture 
hall  was  not  half  large  enough  to  seat  those  who  desired  to  hear  the  debate.  Many  small 
groups  of  students  have  discussed  the  question  for  many  hours.  One  such  group — an- 
other self-started  and  self-propelled  group — organized  two  years  ago  by  students  pri- 
marily interested  in  the  social  sciences,  at  one  stage  of  their  discussion  recently  asked  a 
professor  of  physics  to  meet  with  them  and  discuss  the  inductive  and  the  deductive 
methods  of  work  as  used  by  physical  scientists  in  order  that  these  social-science  students 
might  compare  and  contrast  methods  of  work  in  the  two  fields.  The  professor  of  physics 
later  told  me  that  it  was  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  stimulating  discussions  in  which 
he  had  ever  been  privileged  to  participate  or  to  which  he  had  ever  listened. 

In  the  design  of  our  new  plan  we  endeavored  to  give  students  greater  encouragement 
and  to  confront  them  with  an  increased  necessity  to  do  more  independent  work  and  to 
read  more  books  with  greater  profit.  But  none  of  us  dreamed  that  in  so  short  a  time 
freshmen  and  sophomores  could  be  brought  to  read  so  much  or  so  intelligently.  We 
early  learned  that  our  major  library  problem  was  not  to  get  the  students  to  use  the 
books  but  to  supply  enough  seating  capacity  in  the  reading  rooms,  enough  books,  and 
enough  service  for  the  withdrawal  of  books.  During  the  current  year  we  have  had  a 
daily  circulation  of  over  a  thousand  volumes  of  books  used  only  in  the  Humanities  course 
and  in  the  first  and  second  year  Social  Science  courses;  and  the  reading  in  these  volumes 
is  in  addition  to  rather  heavy  text  assignments  in  one  course  and  large  amounts  of  in- 
dispensable readings  in  each  of  the  other  two  courses  in  a  set  of  several  volumes  rented  to 
each  student  for  the  academic  year. 

A  part  of  the  on-going  program  of  each  of  the  four  introductory  general  courses  is 
the  organization  of  several  types  of  special  sections:  honors  sections  open  to  superior  stu- 
dents by  invitation;  special  interest  sections  open  to  any  student  who  has  a  burning  de- 
sire to  pursue  the  particular  phase  of  the  field  announced  for  the  particular  special  sec- 
tion farther  than  is  provided  by  the  regular  program  of  the  syllabus;  and  trailer  training 
sections  for  students  who  need  additional  assistance.  These  sections  are  in  addition  to  the 
regularly  scheduled  discussion  sections  and  are  on  a  voluntary  basis.  In  the  Humanities 
course  special  interest  sections  are  offered  in  literature,  in  philosophy,  in  religion,  and 
in  fine  arts.  Last  autumn  when  a  member  of  the  Humanities  staff  announced  the  special 
interest  section  for  the  field  of  literature,  hoping  to  attract  about  twenty  students,  he  was 
nonplussed  when  at  the  first  meeting  he  found  approximately  a  hundred  students — twice 
as  many  as  there  were  seats  in  the  room.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  gave  them  his  assur- 
ance "as  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar"  that  he  would  not  attempt  in  any  way  so  to  con- 
duct the  program  of  the  section  that  it  would  be  of  any  direct  assistance  to  any  student 
in  passing  the  Humanities  comprehensive  examination,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he 
announced  a  qualifying  examination  to  be  given  a  week  thence  to  eliminate  those  not 
genuinely  in  earnest  in  their  expressed  desire  to  pursue  the  study  of  literature  solely  for 
its  own  sake,  he  succeeded  in  cutting  the  number  of  the  group  no  more  than  half.  Even 
with  a  group  too  large  for  the  plan  of  procedure  originally  contemplated,  the  program 
as  modified  by  necessity  attained  most  gratifying  results. 

In  the  program  of  the  Introductory  General  Course  in  the  Biological  Sciences  there  is 
no  provision  for  individual  manipulatory  laboratory  work  on  the  part  of  the  students. 
The  object  of  the  course  is  not  to  train  botanists  or  zoologists  or  physiologists  or  bac- 
teriologists but  to  give  a  general  education  for  freshmen  and  sophomores,  at  least  three- 
fourths  of  whom  will  never  pursue  any  more  formalized  instruction  in  biology.  The 
objects  of  the  course  are:    (1)    to  cultivate  the  scientific  attitude  of  mind  through  re- 


16 The     Agnes     Scott     Alu  mnae     Quarterly 


peated  illustrations  of  the  scientific  method  of  attack  upon  nature's  problem;  (2)  to  im- 
plant such  practical  information  about  biology  as  is  desirable  for  a  citizen  in  the  modern 
world;  (3)  to  awaken  interest  in  the  impressive  machinery  of  the  organic  world  and  in 
the  major  concepts  of  biology.  Many  of  the  lectures  are  laboratory  demonstration  lec- 
tures. On  approximately  half  of  the  Monday  and  Tuesday  afternoons  through  the  year, 
special  laboratory  demonstration  experiments  and  exhibits,  so  arranged  that  students  in- 
dividually and  in  small  groups  may  have  opportunity  to  examine,  observe,  and  con- 
template at  close  range  and  in  an  unhurried  manner  many  illustrative  phenomena,  are 
provided  on  the  voluntary  basis.  Each  exhibit  and  demonstration  is  given  in  the  graduate 
research  laboratory  of  the  department  concerned.  In  spite  of  inconveniences  in  time  and 
place,  more  than  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  class  regularly  take  advantage  of  these 
special  offerings. 

The  official  Board  examinations,  offered  on  scheduled  dates  twice  a  year,  are  the  only 
examinations  required.  None  is  required  of  either  faculty  or  students  in  any  course  at 
any  time  by  administrative  regulations.  Any  type  of  test,  quiz,  or  examination  may  be 
given  in  any  course  at  any  time,  however,  for  instructional  purposes,  but  not  for  mark- 
recording  purposes.  The  official  Board  examinations  are  the  only  ones  the  results  of  which 
are  made  a  matter  of  record  in  the  registrar's  office.  Interestingly  enough,  in  not  a  few 
courses  students  have  asked  that  examinations  be  given  more  frequently  than  the  in- 
structors thought  necessary,  to  acquaint  both  students  and  instructors  adequately  with 
the  rate  and  degree  of  progress  being  made  by  the  students.  In  more  than  one  instance 
at  the  end  of  the  Autumn  and  Winter  quarters,  after  several  instructional  tests  have  been 
given  during  the  quarter  upon  the  conclusion  of  logical  units  of  work,  it  has  been  left 
to  student  vote  to  determine  whether  a  final  examination  on  the  entire  quarter's  work 
should  be  given.  In  every  such  instance  the  students  have  asked  for  the  examination, 
though  they  knew  that  the  result  would  have  no  officially  recorded  effect  upon  their 
attainment  of  the  junior-college  certificate.  They  did  know,  however,  that  the  ex- 
amination would  be  carefully  corrected  and  returned,  and  would  thus  be  valuable  in 
their  preparation  for  the  official  Board  examination. 

A  student  may  take  any  one  or  more  of  the  comprehensive  examinations  any  time 
they  are  offered  whether  he  has  attended  all  or  part  or  none  of  the  sessions  of  the  corre- 
sponding courses  offered  as  year  courses  through  the  three  regular  quarters  of  the  academic 
year  to  assist  students  in  their  preparation  for  examinations.  Though  most  students  attend 
courses  through  the  entire  academic  year  before  taking  the  corresponding  examinations, 
in  the  first  calendar  year  that  examinations  were  offered  (June,  1932,  to  June,  1933, 
inclusive),  131  students  took  examinations  after  having  attended  corresponding  courses 
only  two  of  the  three  quarters,  62  after  attending  only  one  quarter,  and  78  without  at- 
tending. The  letter  grade  proportions  for  the  271  students  who  took  examinations  be- 
fore completing  the  customary  three  quarters  of  the  course  were:  A  14  per  cent,  B  30, 
C  36,  D  12,  and  F  8;  the  proportions  for  the  entire  group  taking  examinations  were  A 
9  per  cent,  B  18,  C  41,  D  18,  F  15. 

The  proportion  of  high  grades,  A  and  B,  was  much  higher  for  those  students  who 
took  examinations  without  registering  for  the  course  or  after  only  one  quarter's  at- 
tendance than  for  those  who  attended  the  full  three  quarters.  The  proportion  of  failures 
in,  the  faster  group  was  only  half  the  proportion  of  failures  in  the  entire  group.  These 
facts  plainly  show  that  the  superior  students  are  taking  advantage  of  the  opportunities 
offered  under  the  new  plan.  The  important  result  is  not  merely  that  students  may  save 
time  by  completing  the  junior-college  requirements  in  less  than  two  years  and  the 
Bachelor's  degree  requirements  in  less  than  four  years,  but  that  students  are  encouraged 
to  work  "on  their  own"  and  are  saved  from  perfunctory  and  routine  repetition  or  boring 
and  unnecessary  review  and  are  encouraged  always  to  be  engaged  in  work  that  challenges 
their  capacity  to  the  utmost. 


The    Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  17 

Though  we  do  not  offer  junior-college  courses  in  the  Summer  quarter,  last  summer 
we  had  over  a  hundred  students  who  came  regularly  each  week  to  the  College  Library  to 
withdraw  books  by  the  armful.  Some  of  these  students  had  failed  one  or  more  examina- 
tions in  June  and  were  preparing  to  take  them  again  in  September.  A  more  significant 
group  of  considerable  size,  however,  had  passed  a  full  quota  of  examinations  in  June  and 
were  "working  up"  new  fields,  without  attending  courses.  Most  of  these  students  (from 
our  best  group)  passed  the  examinations  with  distinction.  One  mother  told  me  that 
after  observing  that  her  son  and  two  of  his  friends  had  worked  faithfully  on  the  physical 
science  field  during  part  of  June  and  all  of  July  and  August,  preparing  to  take  the  exam- 
ination late  in  September  without  attending  the  course,  she  insisted  that  her  son  go  with 
her  to  their  camp  in  the  northern  woods  for  the  first  three  weeks  in  September,  prior  to 
the  examination.  It  was  arranged  that  the  two  friends  should  join  them  two  or  three 
days  later,  after  camp  was  put  in  order.  She  was  astonished  to  observe,  when  she  and  her 
son  met  the  two  friends  at  the  station  many  miles  from  camp,  that  the  largest  items  of 
luggage  were  bundles  of  books  brought  in  compliance  with  a  conspiracy  to  avoid  having 
their  work  interrupted  by  the  vacation  in  unacademic  surroundings. 

Under  the  old  plan,  with  required  class  attendance,  most  students  seemed  to  think  it 
necessary  to  take  a  standard  number  of  "cuts"  to  preserve  their  self  respect.  Under  the 
voluntary  attendance  plan  the  attendance  at  many  classes  has  been  better  than  under  the 
old  plan.  More  frequently  than  formerly  students  are  visiting  courses  for  which  they  are 
not  registered.  Attendance  now  seems  to  be  in  direct  ratio  with  the  extent  to  which 
the  students  think  the  class  period  profitable  to  them;  there  was  no  such  correlation  under 
the  old  plan  when  a  course  credit  was  at  stake. 

Though  we  have  not  raised  our  admission  requirements,  the  new  plan  has  produced  a 
higher  degree  of  self-selection  among  our  applicants  for  admission  as  freshmen.  Last 
year  over  40  per  cent  of  our  entering  freshmen  ranked  in  the  upper  tenth  of  their 
graduating  high-school  classes  and  approximately  two-thirds  were  in  the  highest  quarter. 

The  first  year  of  operation  of  the  new  plan  in  the  upper  divisions  was  1933.  Whether 
developments  comparable  to  those  reported  in  this  paper  for  the  lower  division  will  fol- 
low in  the  upper  divisions  remains  to  be  seen.  Results  to  date,  however,  seem  to  indicate 
that  our  first  crop  of  initiates  to  Phi  Beta  Kappa  under  the  new  plan  will  be  more  signific- 
antly selected  and  hence  as  a  group  will  be  more  worthy  members  of  the  society  than  were 
many  elected  under  the  old  plan  on  the  course  grade-point  average. 


*  1 


SOCIAL  TRENDS  AND  SOCIAL  GOALS 

Cleveland  Zahner,  ex  '07 

At  the  outset  of  this  brief  discussion,  I  wish  to  state  that  I  am  confining  myself 
principally  to  that  division  of  social  work,  which  we  call  the  relief  of  destitution,  as 
distinguished  from  other  classifications  such  as  child  welfare  and  medical  social  work. 

Any  phase  of  our  modern  life  can  be  viewed  in  its  entirety  only  if  one  looks  at  the 
subject  historically.  We  understand  our  present  and  can  work  towards  our  future  only 
in  the  light  of  our  past.  I  shall,  therefore,  outline  briefly  the  background  of  the  relief 
for  the  destitute  in  America  before  I  discuss  the  situation  as  it  is  today. 

Colonial  America  modeled  its  laws  for  care  of  its  poor  upon  those  laws  already  exist- 
ing in  England.  In  the  thirteen  original  colonies  and  in  the  other  states  as  those  states 
were  added  to  the  Union,  there  were  passed  so-called  "pauper  laws,"  to  use  the  termin- 
ology of  the  17th  and  18th  centuries.  Except  in  Louisiana,  these  poor  laws  are  still  in 
force  today  so  that  the  basis  of  our  laws,  relating  to  public  welfare,  lies  in  the  Elizabethan 
Poor  Law  of  1601. 

These  "Pauper  Laws"  expressed  the  ideas  of  the  English  upper  classes,  the  feeling  that 
the  destitute  were  in  their  condition  of  poverty  because  of  their  inferiority,  and  that  their 
inability  for  self-maintenance  was  their  own  fault.  This  opprobrium  still  clings  to  those 
unfortunates  in  society  who  are  the  beneficiaries  of  public  relief  in  some  of  our  own 
counties  today.  Again,  the  English  Poor  Law  firmly  entrenched  in  American  communi- 
ties the  principle  of  "local  responsibility,"  the  belief  that  the  local  unit  of  government 
must  with  its  own  funds  care  for  the  poor  having  legal  settlement  in  that  unit.  Tax 
funds  for  poor  relief  must  be  spent  where  collected.  Our  inheritance,  therefore,  was  first 
this  harsh  and  deterrent  attitude  towards  these  unfortunates  who  were  forced  to  apply  for 
poor  relief  and  secondly,  our  inheritance  was  the  settled  conviction  that  only  those  were 
eligible  for  relief  who  had  legal  residence  within  our  local  boundaries. 

In  the  years  following  the  Napoleonic  wars,  due  to  the  enormous  numbers  of  per- 
sons in  England  who  were  receiving  public  aid  and  who  were  given  this  aid  without 
discrimination  as  to  need,  Parliament  passed  The  Poor  Law  Amendment  Act  in  1834. 
This  act  made  illegal  the  granting  of  relief  to  the  able-bodied  poor  outside  of  work  houses. 
The  conditions  of  these  work  houses  were  so  horrible  that  few  persons  applied  for  this 
"indoor"  relief.  As  a  consequence,  there  were  in  England  vast  numbers  of  destitute  men 
and  women  who  were  begging  in  the  streets  in  preference  to  seeking  public  aid  in  the 
work  houses.  To  offset  this  condition,  an  unheard  of  number  of  private  charities  sprang 
into  being,  some  of  which  duplicated  and  overlapped  others. 

In  America  after  the  depressions  of  1873  and  1893,  somewhat  the  same  development 
took  place,  though  for  a  different  reason.  The  powerful  private  agencies  came  into 
being  in  the  East  because  graft  in  the  administration  of  public  relief  funds  was  so  deep- 
rooted  and  widespread  that  the  rich  and  philanthropic,  despairing  of  reform,  founded  and 
administered  their  own  private  charity  organization  societies.  These  societies  grew  and 
spread  until  in  1929,  we  had  their  counter-part  in  nearly  all  of  our  large  urban  centers. 

For  the  past  fifty  years,  also,  side  by  side  with  those  private  agencies  just  mentioned 
which  existed  solely  for  the  relief  of  destitution,  there  sprang  up  as  needed  by  each  com- 
munity, other  private  agencies  for  the  care  of  dependent  and  neglected  children,  for 
the  care  of  the  aged,  for  medical  and  psychiatric  social  service,  so  that  our  large  cities  had 
on  the  one  hand,  the  public  agency  administering  relief  under  the  old  pauper  laws  in- 
herited directly  from  the  Elizabethan  Poor  Law  of  1601  and  on  the  other  hand,  an  un- 
organized multiplicity  of  privately-supported  agencies. 

While  new  agencies  in  the  private  field  have  thus  been  coming  into  being,  another 
movement  in  the  opposite  direction  has  been  noticeable.  Attempts  have  been  made  by 
social  workers  to  rationalize  and  coordinate  these  social  agencies.  Three  such  attempts  are: 

1.    To  extract  from  the  Poor  Law  certain  beneficiaries  who  suffered  from  destitution 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  19 

due  to  certain  disabilities  and  grant  state  aid  to  this  class  of  persons.    I  refer  here  to 
Mothers'  Pensions,  Old  Age  Pensions,  Blind  Pensions. 

2.  Certain  machinery  set  up  by  social  workers  themselves  to  regulate  these  many 
agencies.  In  the  public  field,  such  machinery  are  the  various  State  Boards  of  Public  Wel- 
fare. In  general,  the  State  Departments  of  Welfare  have  not  been  granted  mandatory 
powers  by  the  various  state  legislatures.  They  have  had  little  authority  and  have  thus 
been  handicapped  in  their  plans. 

3.  In  the  private  field,  we  have,  in  many  communities,  Central  Councils  of  Social 
Agencies  and  the  Community  Chests.  In  the  same  manner  as  the  State  Boards  of  Welfare, 
the  Councils  of  Social  Agencies  in  various  communities  have  used  the  method  of  per- 
suasion and  exchange  of  information  in  attempting  to  coordinate  the  various  agencies 
and  to  set  up  uniform  standards.  Except  in  the  field  of  the  care  of  dependent  children, 
not  much  progress  has  been  made  towards  perfectly  coordinated  plans  in  the  communi- 
ties. Unless  Councils  of  Social  Agencies  are  held  together  by  the  budget  power  of  the 
chest,  they  are  not  very  successful.  Community  chests  having  budget  control  have  been 
able  to  exercise  some  powers  of  coordination. 

This  is  the  picture  of  social  work  presented  by  America  when,  in  1929,  the  storm 
broke.  After  a  Herculean  struggle  to  keep  their  heads  above  the  oncoming  tide  of 
thousands  of  destitute  families  applying  for  aid  because  of  unemployment,  the  private 
agencies  found  they  could  not  carry  the  heavy  burden.  In  spite  of  enormous  amounts  of 
money  contributed  by  private  individuals  throughout  the  nation,  there  was  not  any- 
where near  the  amount  of  money  needed.  First  the  state  governments  and  then  the 
Federal  government  were  forced  to  enter  the  relief  field  on  an  unheard  of  scale.  Since 
the  Federal  Emergency  Relief  Act  of  193  3,  we  have  had  set  up  in  each  state  in  the 
Union  and  in  almost  every  county  in  each  state,  Federal  Relief  Administrators  to  care 
for  the  unemployed  in  that  county.  Thus  overnight  almost  a  vast  machinery  has  come 
into  being,  nationally-controlled  and  in  most  instances,  nationally-subsidized.  In  some 
states  and  counties  as  in  our  own  Fulton  County,  for  instance,  the  Federal  Government 
has  combined  its  forces  with  the  county  and  city  to  form  one  agency  to  care  for  all  types 
of  the  destitute,  except  those  persons  already  under  care  of  the  private  agencies.  In  other 
counties,  the  Federal  Relief  Administration  is  separate  from  any  county  relief  unit  which 
is  administered  by  county  officials.  In  most  small  communities  there  are  no  private 
agencies,  so  that  the  public  agencies  carry  the  entire  load. 

To  summarize  at  this  point,  we  see  that  public  relief  was  the  first  form  of  relief  for 
the  destitute,  that  it  has  had  an  unbroken  continuity  down  to  the  present  time  and  that 
except  in  large  cities  where  private  agencies  flourished,  it  was  the  one  form  of  relief 
existing. 

Now  what  of  the  future?  Will  the  public  agencies  gradually  recede  from  the  picture 
and  leave  the  relief  of  destitution  to  the  private?  Some  figures,  I  think,  will  assist  us  in 
answering  this  question.  In  May  of  this  year,  Detroit  made  a  study  of  4,000  families  in 
its  unemployment  load.  These  families  were  divided  into  two  groups:  (1)  Those  with  a 
favorable  prognosis;  that  is,  the  wage-earner  was  not  handicapped,  physically  or  mentally, 
to  resume  work  and  the  industry  or  business,  with  which  he  was  formerly  connected, 
would  re-employ  him,  should  conditions  improve.  (2)  Those  families  with  unfavorable 
prognosis;  that  is,  the  normal  wage-earner  was  either  handicapped  in  some  way  or  his 
former  employer  was  bankrupt.  The  figures  follow:  Prognosis  favorable,  15  per  cent; 
doubtful,  15-20  per  cent;  unfavorable,  65  per  cent. 

Some  Chicago  statistics  will  show  how  large  the  employment  load  is  in  comparison 
with  the  load  the  private  agencies  carried:  United  Charities,  Chicago,  June  1930 — 1633 
total  families  on  relief;  United  Charities,  Chicago,  June,  193  3 — 4016  total  families  on 
relief;  United  Charities,  peak  of  unemployment — 10,000  families  on  relief;  unemployment 
relief — 220,000  families  on  relief. 

As  you  can  readily  see,  the  number  of  persons  needing  assistance,  who  will  continue  to 


20  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

need  assistance  for  some  time  to  come,  is  so  large  that  we  must  not  expect  the  private 
agencies  to  assume  this  load.  Furthermore,  will  they  be  financially  able  to  assume  the 
burden? 

In  151  Chest  cities  in  America,  statistics  show  that  the  money  collected  for  private 
charities  in  1933  was  17.5  per  cent  less  than  that  collected  in  1932,  and  the  amount  col- 
lected in  1932  was  22  per  cent  less  than  in  1931.  We  account  for  this  decrease,  in  the 
first  place,  by  saying  that  many  persons  who  contributed  to  private  charity  in  the  past, 
no  longer  have  the  financial  ability  to  do  so,  and  secondly,  by  realizing  that  the  public 
at  large,  is  more  and  more  assuming  that  the  relief  of  destitution  is  a  real  function  of 
the  government,  just  as  education  has  long  been. 

And  why  should  not  the  welfare  of  its  unfortunate  citizens  be  the  prime  aim  of 
government  as  well  as  the  well-being  of  those  who  have  resources  of  self-maintenance? 
And  in  order  to  realize  this  aim,  why  should  we  not  have  a  Federal  Department  of  Public 
Welfare,  or  Public  Assistance,  to  use  the  newer  term? 

For  the  past  50  years,  the  power  of  the  individual  States  has  been  constantly  declining, 
just  as  that  of  the  Federal  Government  has  been  increasing.  For  most  purposes,  State 
boundaries  do  not  exist.  Certainly  as  far  as  business,  personal  and  private,  is  concerned, 
they  do  not.  Only  in  the  field  of  politics  do  State  boundaries  count  at  all.  In  the  past 
as  voters  clamored  for  better  schools,  for  better  roads,  (and  at  the  same  time  did  not 
want  higher  taxes),  the  States  welcomed  Federal  subsidies,  for  those  two  purposes.  To  the 
Federal  Government  the  States  owe  their  success  in  regard  to  vocational  education  and 
highways. 

By  means  of  these  grants-in-aid  to  States,  the  Federal  Government  can  demand  uni- 
form standards  of  social  work,  and  can  require  that  relief  be  administered  by  qualified 
and  trained  personnel.  This  requirement  is  being  met  now  under  the  Federal  Agency 
Act  of  1933.  Today,  under  this  act,  temporary  and  emergent  though  it  be,  we  find  in 
out-of-the-way  rural  counties  some  attempt  to  dispense  relief  under  modern  standards.  A 
uniform  system,  under  uniform  laws.  No  longer,  as  a  consequence,  will  the  unfortunate 
in  the  larger  cities  have  adequate  care,  while  the  poor  of  the  small  communities  be  dealt 
with  as  if  they  were  living  three  hundred  years  ago! 

We  have,  therefore,  enough  precedent  for  our  goal  of  a  permanent  Federal  Depart- 
ment of  Public  Assistance,  with  svibsidies  to  States,  based  on  need. 

Along  with  this  development  will  go  uniform  state  laws,  relating  to  problems  of 
welfare.  One  illustration,  only,  I  shall  mention  here.  Under  the  old  English  system  of 
"local  responsibility,"  the  non-resident  has  no  claim  to  any  local  aid.  Under  the  present 
State  laws  of  settlement,  a  man  who  moves  into  one  State  may  lose  his  legal  residence 
in  his  own  State,  before  he  can  become  a  citizen  in  another.  Until  the  Federal  Transient 
Bureaus  were  formed  a  little  over  a  year  ago  and  even  today  in  places  where  these  Tran- 
sient Bureaus  do  not  exist,  the  non-resident  is  battered  about  between  one  local  unit  and 
another,  neither  one  wishing  to  spend  any  of  their  own  tax-payers'  money  on  him.  As  a 
step  towards  national  laws  of  public  welfare,  we  should  abolish  our  old  Poor  Laws  and 
with  them  the  old  idea  of  "local  responsibility,"  adopting  uniform  settlement  laws 
throughout  the  nation. 

Under  the  old  system  of  "laissez-faire"  we  shut  our  eyes  to  the  havoc  our  industrial 
era  wrought  in  the  lives  of  our  fellow  citizens.  Now  that  we  realize  that  society  and 
government  are  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  all,  we  must  plan  for  those  persons  whom 
industry  has  thrown  permanently  out  of  employment,  through  no  fault  of  their  own. 
This  means  old  age  pensions,  the  Federal  Government,  to  reiterate,  matching  its  funds 
with  State  funds.  It  will  also  mean  some  sort  of  unemployment  insurance  in  order  to  give 
security  to  those  who  labor  constantly  under  the  shadow  of  technological  and  seasonal 
unemployment. 

What  I  have  outlined  here  so  briefly  and  so  inadequately  is  not  new — all  these 
thoughts  are  already  in  the  air.  Shall  we  not  do  our  best  to  work  forward  to  these  goals? 
Only  thus  shall  "the  charity  of  today  be  the  justice  of  tomorrow!" 


MARIAN  (McCAMY)  SIMS 

Irene  Lowrance,  '28 

Marian  McCamy  was  born  in  Dalton,  Ga.  On  the  maternal  side  of  her  family  she 
was  of  New  England  descent,  and  she  says  "the  mixture  of  a  New  England  conscience 
and  Southern  lethargy  has  run  her  ragged  all  her  life." 

She  came  to  Agnes  Scott  in  1916.  Those  who  "knew-her-when"  well  remember  her 
vivid  personality  in  the  particular  activities  of  basketball  and  Blackfriars.  In  those 
days  she  says  she  "looked  with  reverential  awe  at  any  sort  of  literary  activity."  In  fact, 
she  went  so  far  as  to  fail  an  English  1 1  exam  under  Miss  McKinney,  because  she  had  "no 
love  or  appreciation  for  English  literature"! 

After  graduation  Marian  taught  History  and  French  for  two  years  in  the  high  school 
in  Dalton.  The  following  year  she  taught  in  LaGrange.  But  "schoolmarming"  was  prov- 
ing too  nerve-racking,  so  she  went  to  Wisconsin  on  a  visit  and  accidentally  got  a  new 
job, — with  an  advertising  firm.  She  wrote  direct  mail  advertisements,  folders,  letters, 
etc, — for  syndication.  Marian's  cleverness  and  versatility  were  well  exhibited  in  this  field 
of  livelihood.  During  the  three  years  she  worked  for  this  company  she  said  that  she  wrote 
for  sixty  or  more  different  businesses, — drycleaners,  druggists,  florists,  even  osteopaths! 
(Recently  she  walked  into  a  local  osteopathic  clinic  and  found  on  the  office  table  some 
"educational  literature"  that  she  had  written  several  years  ago.  Imagine  walking  into  a 
strange  place  and  meeting  yourself  disguised  like  that!)  This  job  was  fine  experience, 
because,  as  Marian  said,  it  got  her  into  the  habit-of-writing;  and,  it  seems,  that  "the 
habit,"  or  routine  of  handling  words,  is  the  first  requisite  for  an  author. 

When  asked  how  she  happened  to  take  up  fiction  writing,  Marian  said  that  she  had 
always  intended  doing  something  to  justify  her  existence,  and  story  writing  was  the  one 
thing  she  hadn't  tried,  and  therefore,  the  one  thing  she  didn't  know  she  couldn't  do. 

In  1927  she  was  married  to  Mr.  Frank  K.  Sims,  Jr.,  a  young  attorney,  and  moved  to 
Greensboro,  N.  C.  She  did  not  know  many  people  here,  and  had  "time"  on  her  hands, 
so  she  began  to  write.  Shortly  afterward,  she  and  Mr.  Sims  moved  to  Charlotte;  she  con- 
tinued her  fiction  writing  in  earnest.  For  four  years  she  "struggled  without  a  break." 
The  short  stories  (and  the  novel)  were  re-written,  re- vised,  and  still  re-jected.  In 
the  meantime,  Marian  had  acquired  an  agent.  (Next  to  "the  habit-of-writing,"  an 
agent  appears  to  be  the  most  important  factor.)  This  agent  was  very  temperamental; 
at  first,  she  was  most  enthusiastic  and  encouraging,  advising  this  be  rewritten  and  that  be 
revised;  then  suddenly  she  lost  interest  and  decided  she  "wouldn't  care  to  handle  Mrs. 
Sims'  material."   Such  are  the  struggles  of  the  rising  author! 

In  1932  Marian  won  the  North  Carolina  Short  Story  Contest,  which  is  sponsored 
each  year  by  the  Charlotte  Writers  Club,  with  her  story,  Roman  Candles.  Mr.  Struthers 
Burt,  well-known  writer  of  Southern  Pines,  was  one  of  the  judges  for  this  contest.  He 
and  his  wife,  Catherine  Newlin  Burt,  who  is  a  novelist  of  some  note,  were  interested 
in  Marian;  they  met  her  and  spoke  encouragingly  of  her  work.  They  gave  her  some  tips 
on  the  fiction  market.  Mr.  Burt  helped  her  secure  another  literary  agent,  and  from  then 
on,  Marian  was  on  the  "up  and  up."  Within  a  few  weeks  she  sold  stories  (which  her 
former  agent  had  decided  were  unmarketable)  to  Home  Magazine,  Colliers  Weekly,  and 
Saturday  Evening  Post.  However,  all  was  not  "easy  sale-ing";  oh,  no;  the  revisions  and 
rejections  still  went  on;  but  the  "contact"  had  been  made  and  Marain  was  "taking  off" 
for  Success.  She  had  hitched  her  wagon  (pardon  me,  for  mixing  my  metaphors!)  to 
a  star, — The  Morning  Star, — and  was  riding  high. 

And  she  still  is.  Soon  she  will  have  stories  published  in  McCall's  Magazine  and  in  the 
Pictorial  Review,  and,  she  confides,  there  is  also  to  be  another  novel. 

Morning  Star,  as  the  inside  of  its  cover  will  tell  you,  is  "one  of  the  most  fascinating 
romances   of   the   year."     It    is   light   reading.     (Marian    declares   she's    too   informal    to 


22  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

write  otherwise.)  The  scene  is  Southern;  not  the  Southern  atmosphere  that  is  cloyingly 
sentimental,  nor  that  which  is  disgustingly  morbid,  but  just  the  honest-to-goodness 
folksey  South. 

All  Agnes  Scotters  will  be  genuinely  thrilled  to  read  the  paragraphs  which  describe 
Emily's  (the  heroine's)  college  days  at  Ardmore  College.  Every  former  freshman  will 
join  her  in  reminiscing  over  that  first  year  .  .  .  "the  routine  of  college;  swiftly  passing 
days  of  study;  nights  of  soft  beauty  on  the  campus,  when  the  moon  silvered  the  roofs 
and  etched  the  tower  of  Main  in  dark  grace  against  the  sky." 

And  all  ex-seniors  will  feel  a  warming  in  the  "cockles  of  their  hearts"  when  they  read 
of  Emily's  pleasure  in  recalling  the  milestones  of  her  senior  year.  Marian  has  written 
these  pages  in  the  second  person;  she  is  sharing  with  each  Hottentot  the  sacred  traditions 
and  rituals  of  Agnes  Scott. 

Perhaps  you're  curious  about  the  title  and  how  it  came  to  be  Morning  Star.  Marian 
explains  it  this  way:  she  and  Mr.  Sims  were  passing  a  negro  church  and  decided  to  go  in 
to  listen  to  the  services  and  music.    Two  little  negro  girls  were  singing  a  duet: 

"7  got  a  mother  in  Glory  Land, 
She  fixed  her  eye  on  the  Morning  Star. 
Dont  let  nothing  turn  you  'round  .  .  ." 

and  Marian  immediately  put  the  negro  spiritual  right  into  her  novel  and  it  made  a  lovely, 
shining  title  for  her  book. 


PASTELS 

From  the  October,  1934,  Ladies'  Home  Journal 

How  dull  they  lie  in  their  dusty  bins 

Like  colorless  virtues  or  drab  little  sins, 

But  spread  on  a  canvas  their  pigments  gleam 

With  the  luster  of  life  and  the  tissue  of  dream. 

How  didl  life's  recurring,  monotonous  days 

If  there's  not  any  ardor  to  color  its  ivays. 

But  once  love  has  touched  these  eveyday  things 

Duty  has  glamour  and  hours  have  wings. 

Leonora    (Owsley)    Herman,  Institute. 


Miss  Florence  Smith  attended  the  con- 
vention of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  in  Cincinnati 
in  August. 

Miss  Elizabeth  Jackson  spent  the  month 
of  June  touring  the  Province  of  Quebec. 
After  that,  she  spent  a  very  quiet  sum- 
mer at  home  with  her  parents  in  South 
Weymouth,   Mass. 

Miss  Emma  May  Laney  and  Dr.  Philip 
Davidson  were  on  the  faculty  of  Hunter 
College  in  New  York  City.  Miss  Laney  also 
spent  part  of  the  summer  at  Chautauqua, 
N.  Y. 

Miss  Harriet te  Haynes,  Bee  Miller,  '30, 
and  Carrie  Scandrett,  '24,  spent  a  week 
together  in  New  York,  after  which  Miss 
Haynes  sailed  for  Austria  where  she  stud- 
ied dancing. 

Miss  Emily  Dexter  spent  the  summer  in 
Wisconsin. 

Mrs.  Alma  Sydenstricker  was  at  Chau- 
tauqua, studying  in  the  Department  of  Re- 
ligious Education. 

Miss  Melissa  Cilley  studied  in  Spain, 
Portugal  and  Morocco. 

Miss  Edna  Ruth  Hanley  received  her 
Master's  Degree  in  Library  Science  at  the 
University  of  Michigan  in  June.  She  spent 
part  of  the  summer  in  Canada. 

Miss  Leslie  Gaylord  studied  in  Michigan. 

Dr.  Mary  F.  Sweet  and  Miss  Louise  Mc- 
Kinney  visited  High  Hampton  Inn,  Cash- 
iers and  Highlands,  N.  C. 

Dr.  Arthur  Raper  toured  the  southern 
states  to  observe  the  effects  of  the  New 
Deal  on  the  white  and  negro  laborer.  Dr. 
Raper  also  conducted  a  ten  day  camp  in  the 
mountains  of  North  Carolina. 

Miss  Anna  May  Baker,  formerly  connect- 
ed with  the  Mathematics  Department,  is 
now  head  of  the  F.  E.  R.  A.  in  Orange, 
Virginia. 

Miss  Roberta  Hollingsworth,  former 
Spanish  teacher,  is  now  Dean  of  Women  of 
the  University  of  Virginia.  Miss  Hollings- 
worth also  runs  a  tea  room  on  the  Univer- 
sity campus. 

Miss  Florence  Edler,  who  was  a  member 
of  the  History  Department  formerly,  sail- 
ed on  September  the  twenty-sixth  for  Brus- 
sels, where  she  will  study  on  a  C.  R.  B. 
fellowship. 

New  faculty  members  this  session  in- 
clude: Dr.  T.  W.  Whitaker  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Biology,  to  fill  the  vacancy  left  by 


Miss  Mary  Westall;  Nancy  Rogers,  '34,  as 
a  member  of  the  Biology  Department; 
Thelma  Richmond,  '33,  as  a  member  of  the 
French  faculty;  Margaret  Bell,  '33  as  Sec- 
retary to  Miss  Hopkins;  Nelle  Chamblee, 
'34,  in  charge  of  the  college  book  store; 
Miss  Emilie  Thomas,  as  an  addition  to  the 
staff  of  the  Infirmary;  Elinor  Hamilton, 
'34,  as  Field  Alumnae  Secretary;  Ellen 
Douglas  Leyburn,  '27,  as  a  member  of  the 
English  faculty;  Polly  Vaughan,  '34,  as  a 
i  fellow  in  Spoken  English;  Eugenie  Dozier, 
'27,  as  a  member  of  the  Physical  Educa- 
tion Department. 

Miss  Annie  May  Christie  has  returned  to 
the  English  faculty. 

Dr.  and  Mrs.  McCain  spent  part  of  the 
summer  with  his  family  in  Due  West,  S.  C. 

Miss  Hopkins  spent  the  summer  with  her 
family  in  Staunton,  Va. 

Miss  Lillian  Smith  spent  most  of  the 
summer  in  Syracuse,  N.  Y.  with  her  niece, 
Dorothea  Keeney,  Academy. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  C.  W.  Dieckmann  spent  the 
summer  at  the  University  of  Georgia  in 
Athens,  where  Mr.  Dieckmann  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  summer  music  faculty. 

Miss  Mary  Stuart  MacDougall  spent  the 
summer  in  France,  where  she  continued  her 
research  work. 

Dr.  and  Mrs.  Hem*y  Robinson  spent  the 
summer  at  their  home  in  the  mountains  of 
N.  C. 

Miss  Catherine  Torrance  went  to  Cleve- 
land in  August  for  the  marriage  of  her 
niece,  Mary  Frances  Torrance,  '33. 

Miss  Muriel  Harn  spent  the  summer  at 
home  in  Baltimore,  Maryland  with  her 
family. 

Miss  Frances  Gooch  went  to  the  North 
Cape  during  the  summer. 

Miss  Leslie  Gaylord  spent  part  of  the 
summer  in  Winchester,  Va.  with  her  fam- 
ily. She  is  now  living  in  an  apartment  in 
Decatur. 

Miss  Katherine  Omwake  spent  the  sum- 
mer with  her  family  in  Washington,  D.  C. 

Gwendeline  Miller  spent  the  summer  in 
Kalamazoo,  Michigan,  with  her  family. 
She  enjoyed  a  visit  from  Andrewena  Rob- 
inson, '32,  during  which  time  they  went  to 
the  World's  Fair. 

Miss  Louise  Lewis  spent  part  of  the  sum- 
mer with  relatives  in  Alabama. 


What  Is  the  NRA?  is  an  interesting 
booklet  to  be  used  for  study  and  discus- 
sion. Copies  may  be  procured  from  the 
Superintendent  of  Documents,  Washing- 
ton, D.  C,  for  five  cents  a  copy.  It  is 
highly  recommended  for  alumnae  who  wish 
to  be  well  informed  on  the  aims,  methods 
and  accomplishments  of  the  National  Re- 
covery  Administration. 

*     *     *     # 

The  A.  A.  U.  W.  has  requested  that 
the  following  information  be  given  Agnes 
Scott  alumnae:  All  applications  and  recom- 
mendations for  fellowships  from  the  Amer- 
ican Association  of  University  Women 
must  reach  the  secretary  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Fellowship  Awards,  1634  I  Street, 
N.  W.,  Washington,  D.  C,  not  later  than 
December  1,  1934,  and  should  be  accompan- 
ied by  a  transcript  of  record  of  graduate 
or  undergraduate  work,  a  certificate  from 
the  registrar  of  the  college  or  university 
awarding  the  degree  or  degrees  received 
by  the  applicant,  testimonials  as  to  charac- 
ter, theses  or  papers  or  reports  of  investi- 
gation, a  health  certificate,  and  a  small 
recent  photograph. 

The  Lecture  Association  is  happy  to  an- 
nounce a  lecture  on  November  23  by  Edna 
St.  Vincent  Millay  at  the  College.  The 
single  admission  tickets  for  this  are  $1.00 
for  reserved  seats,  and  75c  for  general  ad- 
mission. 


The  Class  of  1935,  77  in  all,  will  be  in- 
vested with  caps  and  gowns  on  Saturday, 
November  3. 

*     *     *     * 

The  Annual  Stunts  were  presented  by 
the  classes  of  '37  and  '38  on  October 
the  thirteenth.  The  traditional  Black  Cat 
was  belled  with  the  designation,  "Awarded 
to  the  class  of  '37." 


Blackfriars  will  present  one  of  George 
Bernard  Shaw's  Plays  on  November  17. 
The  male  parts  will  be  taken  by  local  men, 
interested  in  these  dramatic  productions. 

A  Word  About  Our  Contributors:  Irene 
Lowrance,  '28,  took  an  active  part  in  Black- 
riars  during  her  college  career.  This  in- 
terest she  has  continued  in  her  work  with 
the  Little  Theater  of  Charlotte,  N.  C.  Irene 
is  Editor  of  the  Curtain  Call,  publication 
for  this  group.  On  the  business  side,  Irene 
is  now  teaching  Latin  in  Charlotte.  Cleve- 
land Zahner,  ex-'07,  is  a  graduate  of  Rad- 
cliffe,  having  attended  Agnes  Scott — then 
Agnes  Scott  Institute — from  1903  through 
1905.  She  has  long  been  interested  in  the 
work  of  the  Crippled  Children's  Home  in 
Atlanta.  At  present,  as  one  would  guess 
from  her  splendid  article,  she  is  connected 
with  the  Fulton  County  Relief  Administra- 
tion. Her  article  is  believed  to  be  of 
peculiar  interest  at  this  time,  since  so  many 
Agnes  Scotters  have  gone  into  this  field. 

*  *     *     * 

5,600  Pledges  have  been  paid  in  full  to 
date.  $82,000  was  received  during  the  year 
as  payment  toward  these  pledges;  on  the 
basis  of  our  collections  the  College  col- 
lected $41,000  from  the  General  Educa- 
tion Board. 

*  *     *     * 

31  1934  Granddaughters  is  the  record  of 
this  club  this  session.  They  are:  Harriet 
Dimmock,  '35,  daughter  of  Edith  Lott, 
ex-'09;  Clara  Morrison,  '35,  and  Margaret 
Morrison,  '38,  daughters  of  Louise  Read, 
Academy;  Alberta  Palmour,  '35,  daughter 
of  Mary  Crenshaw,  Institute;  Martha  Red- 
wine,  '35,  daughter  of  Lucy  Reagan,  '10; 
Susan  Turner,  '35,  daughter  of  Annie  Dow- 
dell,  '02;  Mary  Adams,  '36,  daughter  of 
Bertha  Thomas,  Institute;  Mary  Hender- 
son, '36,  daughter  of  Ruth  Home,  Acad- 
emy;   Frances    McCully,    '36,    daughter   of 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 


33 


Margaret  Lilla  Wilson,  Institute;  Elizabeth 
Forman,  '36;  daughter  of  Mary  Dortch, 
Institute;  Loraine  Smith,  '36,  daughter  of 
Edith  Farlinger,  ex-'lO;  Lucile  Cairns,  '37, 
daughter  of  Lucile  Colclough,  Institute; 
Fannie  B.  Harris,  '37,  daughter  of  Lillie 
Bell  Bachman,  ex-'09;  Dorothy  Lee,  '37, 
daughter  of  Clara  Rusk,  Institute;  Ora 
Muse,  daughter  of  Eliza  MacDonald,  ex- 
'11;  Barton  Jackson,  '37,  daughter  of  Clyde 
McDaniel,  '10;  Martha  Johnson,  '37,  daugh- 
ter of  Ruth  Dolly,  Special;  Virginia 
Gaines,  '37,  daughter  of  Ethel  Gaines,  '00, 
and  granddaughter  of  the  first  president  of 
Agnes  Scott,  Dr.  F.  H.  Gaines;  Kathleen 
Daniel,  '37,  daughter  of  Kathleen  Kirk- 
patrick,  '04;  Caroline  Armistead,  '38, 
daughter  of  Frances  McCrory,  Academy; 
Kennon  Henderson,  '38,  daughter  of  Nellie 
Lcuise  Mandeville,  '99;  Mary  Lyon  Hull, 
'38,  daughter  of  Martha  Miller,  ex-'09; 
Winifred  Kellersberger,  '38,  stepdaughter 
of  Julia  Lake  Skinner,  '19;  Dorothy  Lee 
Kelly,  '38,  daughter  of  Gladys  Lee,  '11; 
Mary  Nell  Tribble,  '38,  daughter  of  Martha 
Schaefer,  Institute;  Nancy  Tucker,  '38, 
daughter  of  Lavalette  Sloan,  '13;  Pauline 
Wynne,  '38,  daughter  of  Frances  Dukes, 
'13;  Lillian  and  Lulu  Croft,  '38,  daugh- 
ters of  Lulie  Morrow,  '05;  Nell  Scott 
Earthman,  '38,  daughter  of  Eliza  Candler, 
Institute,  and  great-granddaughter  of  Col- 
onel George  Washington  Scott,  founder  of 
Agnes  Scott  College;  and  Martha  Young, 
'38,  daughter  of  Martha  Hall,  '12,  The  Club 
met  informally  for  a  business  session  in 
September.  They  were  entertained  at  a 
formal  seated  tea  by  the  Alumnae  Associa- 
tion on  Wednesday,  October  17.  To  this  oc- 
casion were  invited  the  local  mothers  and 
members  of  the  Executive  Board  of  the 
Association.  Further  plans  for  the  club  for 
the  session  will  include  a  dinner  in  De- 
cember or  November,  to  which  each  grand- 
daughter will  invite  an  escort. 

ife       jjt       %        # 

The  New  York  Agnes  Scott  Club  is  pre- 
paring for  their  usual  three  meetings 
during  the  course  of  the  next  year.  Betty 
Gash,  '29,  President,  reports  that  these  are 
very  successful  get-togethers,  but  could 
not  be  held  more  often,  since  it  is  so  hard 
to  organize  people  in  New  York  City. 

34  Honor  Students  were  announced  at 
Chapel  on  September  22,  at  which  time 
Lucile  Alexander,  '11,  made  an  excellent 
talk.  Of  interest  to  alumnae  was  the  award 
to  Clara  Morrison,  '35,  daughter  of  Louise 
Read,  Academy;  to  Elizabeth  Forman,  '36, 
daughter  of  Mary  Dortch,  Institute;  and  to 
Isabel  McCain,  '37,  daughter  of  Dr.  J. 
R.  McCain,  President  of  Agnes  Scott.  Of 
these  34,  13  were  seniors,  10  juniors  and 
11  sophomores. 

*     *     *     * 

Gaines  Cottage  has  been  renovated  and 
reopened    to    students     this     session.     The 


three  dormitories  (Rebekah,  Main  and  In- 
man)  are  in  use  as  a  result  of  the  in- 
creased enrollment.  The  number  of  stu- 
dents to  date  is  488,  with  71  new  day  and 
121  new  boarding  students,  145  old  day 
and  151  old  boarding  students. 

*  *     *     * 

The  Basement  of  Main  now  boasts  of  a 
kitchenette,  made  possible  by  a  gift  from 
the  class  of  '34.  This  will  prove  of  in- 
estimable value  in  entertaining  in  the  re- 
ception rooms  of  the  Main  Building.  The 
kitchenette  includes  in  its  equipment  a 
small  range,  utensils,  dishes,  shelves, 
cabinets,  and  a  sink. 

Attention  is  called  to  the  back  cover  of 
this  issue  cf  the  Quarterly,  where  you  will 
find  a  notice  of  great  importance  from 
the  Chairman  of  the  Publicity  Committee, 
Janef  Preston,  '21. 

*  *     *     * 

The  Student  Loan  Committee  has  been 
able  to  make  three  small  loans  to  stu- 
dents now  in  Agnes  Scott  this  session.  An 
urgent  appeal  to  all  alumnae  who  owe 
money  to  this  fund  is  made,  with  the  hope 
that  funds  returned  this  year  will  be  avail- 
able for  other  badly  needed  loans. 

*  *     *     * 

The  Entertainment  Committee  has  been 
very  active  this  fall,  in  entertaining  for 
the  new  students  on  Friday  of  the  new  ses- 
sion and  in  arranging  for  a  seated  tea  for 
the  Granddaughters'  Club  on  October  17. 

*  *     *     * 

Chapel  Services  follow  a  regular  sched- 
ule this  year:  Tuesday  is  set  aside  for  Y. 
W.  C.  A.;  Wednesday  for  the  faculty; 
Thursday  for  Student  Government;  Friday 
for  stunts;  and  Saturday  for  Dr.  McCain's 
programs. 

*  *     *     * 

Wednesday  Nights  are  gala  ones  on  the 
campus.  The  students  are  required  to  dress 
for  dinner  and  to  be  on  time.  After  din- 
ner, coffee  is  served  by  some  campus  or- 
ganization in  the  reception  rooms  in  Main. 

*  *     *     * 

Three    Exchange    Students    are    on    the 

Agnes  Scott  campus  this  year.  They  rep- 
resent France,  Germany  and  Argentina. 

*  *     *     * 

Dorothy  Smith,  '30,  and  Virginia  Heard, 
'33,  deserve  honorable  mention.  The  former 
is  spending  the  winter  in  France  on  a 
scholarship  won  from  Harvard  University; 
the  latter  is  studying  at  the  University  of 
Michigan,  having  won  the  Beck  Memorial 
Scholarship. 

*  *     *     * 

1322  B.  A.  Degrees  have  been  awarded 
from  Agnes  Scott  at  present;  compare  this 
figure  with  that  of  132  in  1915  and  be 
proud  of  the  continued  progress  of  our 
Alma  Mater! 


34 


The    Agnes    Scott    Alumnae    Quarterly 


The  Committee  on  Beautifying  Grounds 

has  been  active  during  the  summer  in 
preparing  flower  beds  for  spring  blooming. 
It  is  the  hope  of  the  committee  to  erect 
the  arch  over  the  pergola  this  year.  Do- 
nations from  local  clubs  has  made  it  possi- 
ble for  the  committee  to  reduce  the  amount 
borrowed  from  the  Savings  Fund  of  the 
Alumnae  Association  from  $114.67  to 
$60.42.  Appreciation  for  these  donations  is 
felt  by  the  committee  chairmen,  past  and 
present. 

*  *     *     * 

The  Local  Clubs  Committee  hopes  to  or- 
ganize Agnes  Scott  Clubs  in  any  city  which 
has  twenty-five  or  more  Agnes  Scotters 
living  there  at  the  present  time.  Mary 
Waller  Shepherd,  '28,  Chairman  of  this 
Committee,  and  Elinor  Hamilton,  '34,  are 
going  to  devote  their  energies  in  this 
direction. 

$        sis        $        * 

The  Tea  Room  is  this  year  leased  to  the 
Misses  Nelle  and  Lila  Barnett  from 
Sharon,  Ga.  They  are  very  eager  to  serve 
the  needs  of  the  campus  and  to  cater  to 
outside  trade  among  the  alumnae  and  their 
friends.  If  you  are  a  local  alumna,  keep 
them  in  mind  in  planning  your  parties.  If 
you  are  a  little  farther  away,  make  the 
Alumnae  House  your  headquarters  for  a 
visit  during   the   session. 

The  Alumnae  Office  has  been  moved  up- 
stairs into  the  old  sitting  room.  The  space 
and  privacy  are  expected  to  work  wonders. 
The  increased  office  force,  composed  of  the 
General  Secretary  and  five  student  assist- 
ants in  school  on  scholarship  aid  was  the 
immediate  reason  for  this  change. 

*  *     *     * 

The  Curriculum  Committee  is  making 
attractive  plans  for  the  fourth  of  our 
Agnes  Scott  Alumnae  Week-Ends.  The 
tentative  program  is  outlined  by  Clara 
(Whips)  Dunn,  '16,  Chairman,  in  this  is- 
sue. It  is  hoped  that  the  completed  pro- 
gram, reading  lists  and  more  personal  in- 
vitations to  the  festivities  of  the  Week- 
End  can  be  placed  in  the  mails  soon.  Make 
your  plans  now  for  a  return  visit  to 
Agnes  Scott  on  February  22,  for  Founder's 
Day   and  the   Alumnae   Week-End. 

*  *     *     * 

Elinor  Hamilton,  '34,  successor  to  Penny 
(Brown)  Barnett,  '32,  is  out  for  students 
for  Agnes  Scott  for  1935-1936  and  suc- 
ceeding sessions.  The  cooperation  of  alum- 
nae in  calling  her  attention  to  prospective 
students  will  be  a  real  service  to  the  Col- 
lege and  of  actual  help  to  Elinor  in  her 
work. 

The  Washington,  D.  C,  Club  contributed 
$5.00  to  the  Alumnae  Garden  during  the 
summer.  The  first  fall  meeting  was  held 
with   Eva    (Moore)    Sandifer,   ex-'25.    Eva 


is  the  new  President  of  the  Club,  and  Mar- 
guerite Kennedy,  ex-'34,  is  the  newly 
elected  Secretary. 

*  *     *     * 

The  New  Orleans  Club  sent  in  a  number 
of  dainty  linen  luncheon  sets  for  the  use 
of  the  Tea  Room  the  early  part  of  the 
summer.  These  came  as  a  welcome  sur- 
prise, since  the  wear  and  tear  on  our  linen 
necessitates  its  being  replaced  often. 

*  *     *     * 

The  Charlotte  Club  completed  their  do- 
nation to  the  pergola  in  the  Alumnae  Gar- 
den with  a  check  of  $39.25  during  the  sum- 
mer. This  gift  was  greatly  appreciated 
by  the  Garden  Committee  and  by  the  many 
alumnae  who  have  been  able  to  enjoy  the 
pergola  and  the  lovely  roses. 

The  Atlanta  Club,  under  the  presidency 
of  Sarah  Belle  (Brodnax)  Hansell,  '23, 
is  anticipating  a  full  and  successful  year. 
The  first  fall  meeting  was  held  at  the  home 
of  the  president,  with  Dr.  J.  R.  McCain  as 
the  featured  speaker  of  the  afternoon.  The 
club  has  been  divided  into  small  working 
groups,  which  will  cooperate  as  units  in 
contributing  something  of  value  to  the 
Alumnae  House,  the  Alumnae  Garden,  or 
to  the  College  during  the  session.  The 
Club,  as  a  whole,  is  continuing  many  of 
its   projects. 

The  Decatur  Club  meets  monthly  with 
Susan  (Shadburn)  Watkins,  '26,  presiding. 
Carrie  Scandrett,  '24,  spoke  on  achieve- 
ments of  the  College  and  changes  in  the 
student  activities  at  the  September  meet- 
ing. Dr.  Cullen  B.  Gosnell,  husband  of 
Louisa  (White)  Gosnell,  '27,  and  profes- 
sor of  History  and  Economics  at  Emory 
University,  spoke  at  the  October  meeting 
on  "Better  Citizenship."  The  Club  is 
sponsoring  the  sale  of  wax,  has  arranged 
for  demonstrations  of  alumninum  vessels, 
and  hopes  by  many  other  small  ventures  to 
increase  their  treasury  materially.  The 
officers  of  the  club  are:  President,  Susan 
(Shadburn)  Watkins,  '26;  Vice-President, 
Emily  Stead,  '27;  Secretary  and  Treasurer, 
Dorothy  Cassel,  '34.  Meetings  of  the 
Executive  Board  on  the  third  Monday  of 
each  month  precede  the  regular  meetings 
on  the  fourth  Monday. 

*  #     *     * 

The  Business  Girls'  Group  of  the  Atlanta 
Club  meets  monthly  at  a  downtown  tea 
room.  The  schedule  at  present  is  to  meet 
alternate  months  at  Rich's  Tea  Room  and 
the  Frances-Virginia  Tea  Room,  the  Sep- 
tember meeting  having  been  held  at  Rich's, 
with  Dr.  J.  R.  McCain  of  Agnes  Scott  as 
guest  speaker.  The  meetings  are  well  at- 
tended from  twelve  to  two,  the  lunch  hour 
for  many  alumnae  working  in  offices  in 
Atlanta. 


Dear  Alum  11 

Do  you 

year 

ourn  i 

will   lit 

vill   be 

hall  L 

-Andti 

incl 

the  dii 

I'Ii'jm    'el    us   lu'.ir   from   ) 

Station  WSH. 

Alumnae  off: 
alumnae  hoi 

At^WES  SCOTT  COLLEGE 
"GATUR,  GEORGIA 


Alumnae 


Samtanj,  1935 


Cfie  Hlgneg  J>cott  Mlumnae  4£uarterlp 

Published  in  Nov.,  Jan.,  April  and  July  by  the  Agnes  Scott  Alumnae  Association 
Entered  as  second  class  matter  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  August,  1912. 

Volume  XIII  January,  193  5  Number  2 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Investiture  1934 2 

Education  a  Trust 3 

Annie  May  Christie 

Reading  Lists  for  the  Fourth  Alumnae  Week-End 6 

Another  Fine  Offer 9 

J.  R.  McCain 

Is  American  Labor  Pacifist? 11 

William  P.  Maddox 

Experiences  of  a  Year  in  France 17 

Mary  Sprinkle 

Office  News 20 

Class  News 22 


hH»***^<I^**^^**************,H,*****'I^**4^**'^****<H'*********** 


INVESTITURE,  1934 
This  interesting  picture  was  made  on  November  3,  1934 
when  the  class  of  '3  5  was  formally  invested  with  academic 
caps  and  gowns.  In  the  group  are  Miss  Nannette  Hopkins, 
Dean,  capping  Elizabeth  Alexander  (niece  of  Lucile  Alex- 
ander and  Ethel  (Alexander)  Gaines,)  with  Sarah  Cook 
looking  on. 


EDUCATION  A  TRUST 

Annie  May  Christie 

Assistant  Professor  of  English  at  Agnes  Scott  College 

(The  talk  made  to  the  seniors  of  193  5  at  Investiture,  November  3,  1934) 

"The  truth  is,  very  few  can  be  trusted  with  an  education."  If  this  statement  of  Miss 
Louise  Guiney's  is  justified,  it  is  a  sad  indictment  of  most  college  graduates.  She  thought 
of  the  great  majority  of  them  as  so-called  learned  persons  of  the  type  that  made  Hazlitt 
say  more  testily,  "Anyone  who  has  passed  through  the  regular  gradations  of  a  classical 
education  and  is  not  made  a  fool  by  it  may  consider  himself  as  having  had  a  very  nar- 
row escape."  She  saw  them  as  graduates  who  emerge  from  college  puffed  up  with  book- 
learning  and  so  lacking  in  judgment  and  the  graces  of  culture  that  they  never  forget  nor 
let  others  forget  that  they  are  learned.  But  that  is  not  the  only  type  that  cannot  be 
trusted  with  an  education.  Complaints  are  made  that  there  are  many  college  graduates 
who  proceed  to  forget  as  soon  as  they  leave  their  colleges  what  they  have  learned  there. 
Far  from  showing  any  pride  at  all  in  their  learning,  they  slough  it  off  as  quickly  as 
possible.  A  few  days  before  I  was  asked  to  speak  to  you  on  this  occasion,  I  read  with  my 
freshman  class  such  a  complaint  voiced  by  Everett  Dean  Martin,  who  said:  "The  college 
man  shares  the  usual  popular  prejudices  of  his  community.  He  runs  with  the  crowd  after 
the  hero  of  the  hour  and  shows  the  same  lack  of  discrimination  as  do  the  uneducated.  He 
votes  the  same  party  ticket,  is  intolerant  along  with  his  neighbors,  and  puts  the  same  value 
on  material  success  as  do  the  illiterate.  His  education  has  made  very  little  difference  in 
his  religious  beliefs,  his  social  philosophy,  his  ethical  values,  or  his  general  outlook  on  the 
world." 

It  has  never  occurred  to  either  of  these  graduates  that  he  has  been  entrusted  with  any- 
thing, that  education  is  a  trust  given  to  him,  accompanied,  as  all  trusts  are,  by  an  obliga- 
tion to  use  it  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended — in  this  case,  that  of  fitting  him 
and  keeping  him  fitted  for  living  up  to  his  best  possibilities  as  a  member  of  society.  Yet 
that  is  exactly  what  education  is  and  what  the  ideal  college  graduate  understands  it  to 
be.  He  accepts  it  as  such  and  says  to  his  college,  adapting  the  words  of  the  psalmist, 
"Thy  words  have  I  hid  in  my  heart  that  I  might  not  sin  against  thee.  ...  I  will  meditate 
on  thy  precepts  and  have  respect  unto  thy  ways.  I  will  delight  myself  in  thy  statutes. 
I  will  not  forget  thy  word." 

What  are  the  words  of  my  college,  you  should  be  asking  now,  these  precepts  that  I 
must  live  by  after  I  leave  college  in  order  to  keep  my  trust  and  be  a  true  daughter  of 
Agnes  Scott,  these  words  which  I  need  to  fix  deeply  in  my  heart  now — if  I  have  not 
already  done  so — in  the  remaining  months  I  have  in  college?  You  have  had  opportunity 
to  hear  them  over  and  over  as  she  has  said  them  to  you  both  directly  and  indirectly,  but 
you  have  not  heard  them,  seated  as  you  are  in  your  senior  robes,  at  the  high  moment  of 
celebrating  your  investiture.  You  have  perhaps  at  times  been  inattentive  to  them;  you 
can  hardly  afford  to  be  so  now.  Since  we  shall  not  have  time  for  even  the  mention  of  all 
of  them,  I  have  selected  three  on  which  I  should  like  to  say  something  to  you,  believing 
that  the  others  will  occur  to  you  readily  once  you  have  begun  to  think  about  them. 

Your  college  says  to  you  first,  Continue  the  habit  of  study  I  have  insisted  upon  your 
forming,  for  it  will  be  a  great  factor  in  making  your  lives  full  and  useful.  At  the  end 
of  this  year  you  will  have  been  here  four  years,  but  that  is  long  enough  only  to  have 
started  your  education.  It  is  the  greatest  mistake  a  graduate  can  make  to  think  she 
is  educated  on  her  graduation  day.  Education  is  a  life-long  process  of  gathering  in  of  new 
ideas,  of  reflecting  upon  their  influence  upon  each  other  and  upon  old  ideas,  and  of  adjust- 
ing one's  thinking  accordingly.  Matthew  Arnold  has  said,  "Not  a  having  and  a  resting, 
but  a  growing  and  a  becoming,  is  the  character  of  perfection  as  culture  conceives  it." 
Can  you  not  see  how  that  educational  program  reaches  out  over  your  entire  life?  What 
are  four  years  in  such  a  venture?  And  study  does  play  a  great  part  in  this  program.  The 
one  thing  that  your  college  gives  you  that  you  cannot  count  upon  to  remain  entirely 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 


fresh  and  usable  is  the  body  of  facts  you  learn.  Facts  of  today  may  not  be  facts  tomor- 
row because  of  the  discovery  of  new  truth.  There  will  be  much  for  you  to  learn  from 
observation  and  from  books  about  character  of  this  perfection  toward  which  you  must 
work.  Agnes  Scott  will  have  been  able  to  equip  you  with  a  few  tools,  to  inculcate  a  few 
habits,  to  point  the  way.  That  is  about  all.  If  you  stop  growing  now  it  will  be  as  if  a 
composer  had  had  an  inspiration,  had  collected  all  of  his  materials,  and  filled  with  his 
idea,  was  just  ready  to  write  himself  into  music  that  would  stir  the  world,  only  to  have 
paralysis  seize  his  hands  and  lock  up  in  him  the  music  that  would  have  meant  his  de- 
velopment and  that  of  others.  I  know  a  veritable  Rip  Van  Winkle,  a  man  who  stopped 
growing,  went  mentally  to  sleep,  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  so  people  say  who  have 
known  him  for  that  period  of  time.  He  has  been  rejected  as  a  teacher,  but  the  sad  fact 
is  that  he  continues  to  talk  in  his  sleep.  I,  for  one,  have  the  painful  memory  of  having 
been  forced  three  times  to  hear  him  develop  the  same  old  ideas  in  the  same  old  way  to 
practically  the  same  audience.  I  approve  his  college's  repudiation  of  him:  he  has  not 
kept  his  trust.  It  really  is  a  pity  that  all  colleges  have  not  the  machinery  and  the  oppor- 
tunity to  show  their  disapproval  of  the  pitifully  inadequate  lives  many  of  their  graduates 
live.  That  the  excuse  they  would  offer,  that  their  entire  time  is  filled  by  the  office  or  the 
children  or  the  housekeeping  or  the  teaching,  is  not  valid  is  happily  proved  by  the  re- 
spectable number  who  do  manage  to  keep  growing  mentally. 

The  second  word  of  your  college  concerns  the  way  you  think.  She  says  to  you,  I 
have  taught  you  to  be  independent,  discriminating,  and  open-minded  in  your  thinking; 
continue  to  think  thus.  As  in  college,  so  in  the  life  beyond  college  no  one  can,  nor  should, 
do  your  thinking  for  you.  Some  must  be  leaders,  to  be  sure,  and  some  followers;  yet 
though  you  be  a  follower,  you  can  at  least  choose  to  what  leaders  or  to  what  idea  you 
will  give  your  allegiance.  Nor  should  you  follow  slavishly  the  leader  or  the  cause  you 
have  chosen.  The  intelligent  disciple  lays  his  own  convictions  alongside  the  tenets  of  his 
leader  and  says,  Here  I  am  with  you  but  here  I  disagree,  and  for  these  reasons;  I  follow 
you  now  because,  of  all  possible  leaders,  you  come  nearest  to  expressing  my  views  and 
I  can  best  carry  them  out  by  supporting  you;  but  I  do  not  approve  of  certain  ideas  that 
you  have,  and  if  I  can  find  a  better  leader,  I  shall  follow  him.  Nothing  shall  bind  me  to 
you  but  my  honest  and  whole-hearted  approval  of  your  leadership. 

And  assuredly  if  you  are  to  be  independent  of  the  individual  leader  of  thought,  you 
are  not  to  be  led  by  mass  thinking.  The  popularity  of  a  man  or  of  an  idea,  alas,  does 
not  indicate  his  or  its  worth.  It  may,  and  often  does,  indicate  the  greed  or  the  selfishness 
or  the  ignorance  of  the  followers.  Absolute  and  constant  agreement  with  the  prevailing 
opinion  makes  for  stagnation;  progress  has  come  through  independent  minds  like  that  of 
Sir  Francis  Bacon,  who,  skeptical  of  the  learning  of  his  time,  set  about  testing  it  in 
the  light  of  known  truth  and  experiment  and  ridding  the  mind  of  its  idols.  While  still 
at  Cambridge  he  said  that  he  recognized  in  himself  "special  adaptation  for  contemplation 
of  truth.  For,"  he  says,  "I  possessed  a  passion  for  research,  a  power  of  suspending  judg- 
ment with  patience,  of  meditating  with  pleasure,  of  assenting  with  caution,  of  cor- 
recting false  impressions  with  readiness,  and  of  arranging  my  thoughts  with  scrupulous 
pains."  There  is  an  interesting  combination  of  skepticism  and  faith  in  independent 
thinking — skepticism  as  to  the  truth  of  existing  ideas  is  the  starting  point;  faith  in 
the  power  of  truth  to  make  itself  known  to  the  honest  seeker  after  it  enables  the  thinker 
to  go  on.  Be  sure  that  the  blind  follower  of  ready-made  ideas  will  never  get  a  revelation 
of  truth.  The  independent  thinker,  however,  needs  judgment,  discrimination.  There  is 
no  virtue  in  independent  thought  which  leads  to  the  wrong  conclusion.  A  much  more 
dangerous  person  than  the  blind  follower  is  the  thinker  who  shakes  himself  free  from 
all  guidance.  He  should  know  that  the  experience  of  mankind  should  be  taken  into 
account,  that  he  must  have  criteria,  and  that  his  measuring  rules  must  be  true.  The  only 
way  we  have  to  measure  the  truth  of  an  idea  is  by  placing  it  against  our  standard  of  truth 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alu  mnae     Quarterly 5 

and  carefully  noting  its  conformity  or  lack  of  conformity  to  that  standard.  He  should 
strive  for  a  proper  sense  of  values,  making  use  of  all  aids  in  arriving  at  his  power  of 
discrimination  wherever  he  can  find  them,  in  authority  as  well  as  in  experience.  Only 
after  setting  up  such  standards  should  he  attempt  to  judge  for  himself. 

The  independent  thinker  is  likely  to  be  the  flexible  thinker.  He  certainly  should  be, 
for  nothing  is  sadder  than  the  person  who,  having  gone  through  the  laborious  process  of 
arriving  at  a  conclusion,  becomes  infatuated  with  it  and  closes  his  mind  to  all  other  ideas, 
especially  to  ideas  that  would  force  a  change  in  that  conclusion  if  given  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity. The  method  being  followed  by  President  Roosevelt,  that  of  experimenting  toward 
a  solution  of  our  difficult  situation,  shows  him  to  be  a  flexible,  open-minded  thinker. 
Accustomed  as  we  are  to  being  ruled  by  a  fixed  policy,  we  are  now  having  the  heartening 
experience  of  being  ruled,  not  by  a  policy,  but  by  a  thinker  who  is  not  hidebound  but 
is  honestly  and  frankly  with  the  aid  of  other  independent  thinkers  trying  to  work  out 
our  national  salvation. 

The  independent,  discriminating,  open-minded  thinker  is  not  impulsive;  he  can  with 
Lord  Bacon  "suspend  judgment  with  patience."  He  is  not  satisfied  with  half-baked  opin- 
ions, but  keeps  searching  until  he  comes  to  just  conclusions;  nor  does  he  then  rest  in 
the  assurance  that  he  has  arrived  at  ultimate  truth.  But  he  knows  where  he  is  going, 
for  he  knows  that  the  end  of  all  his  thinking  must  be  truth,  and  he  gains  steadily  in 
swiftness  and  surety  in  arriving  at  his  goal. 

Agnes  Scott's  third  and  last  word  to  you  for  today  is,  Wear  the  robes  of  your  learning 
gracefully.  They  are  not  pretentious  robes;  they  never  should  be.  They  are  very  simple 
at  present,  but  the  lines  are  lovely  if  you  know  how  to  wear  them.  There  is  a  design 
upon  them  that  you  yourself  will  embroider  in  your  own  way,  making  these  magic 
garments  richer  and  more  beautiful  the  longer  you  wear  them.  Your  college  does  not 
wish  to  send  out  swaggerers,  more  learned-than-thou  snobs  flaunting  their  assumed  super- 
iority in  the  face  of  the  world.  She  has  by  precept  and  example  tried  to  teach  what  Zona 
Gale  has  called  "the  power  of  order,  the  power  of  beauty,  the  power  of  subtlety."  You 
wish  to  make  use  of  what  you  have  learned,  to  make  your  world  better  because  you  have 
lived  and  learned  in  it,  to  be  sure.  But  you  do  not  need  to  go  out  as  rabid  reformers, 
nor  as  broadcasting  encyclopedias  to  do  this.  If  you  do,  you  will  not  find  a  ready  recep- 
tion for  your  ideas;  you  will  be  too  formidable.  The  true  scholar  has  always  been  un- 
assuming, simple,  quiet.  That  does  not  mean  that  he  does  not  speak  and  speak  with  all 
the  power  in  him  when  the  time  has  arrived  for  him  to  speak.  If  he  really  knows,  he 
will  not  have  to  make  occasions  to  tell  what  he  knows;  the  occasion  will  call  him  out. 
There  are  too  many  speeches  being  made  anyway,  and  too  many  books  being  written. 
In  their  demands  that  the  professors  publish,  many  of  the  colleges  and  universities 
are  guilty  parties  to  the  flooding  of  the  country  with  inferior  books  that  serve  no  useful 
purpose,  add  no  new  truth  to  the  sum  total  of  man's  knowledge  and  no  new  beauty, 
but  only  enable  the  institution  to  say  that  its  faculty  has  published  so  many  books.  Ruskin 
had  a  disturbing  way  of  probing  straight  to  truth.  In  answer  to  the  exponents  of 
progress  who  had  been  boasting  of  their  railroads  and  telegraphs,  he  said,  "Your  railroad 
...  is  only  a  device  for  making  the  world  smaller;  and  as  for  being  able  to  talk  from  place 
to  place,  that  is  indeed  convenient,  but  suppose  you  have,  originally,  nothing  to  say." 
And  Arnold  says  that  culture  "is  not  so  bent  on  acting  and  instituting  even  with  the 
great  aim  of  diminishing  human  error  and  misery  ever  before  its  thoughts,  but  that  it 
can  remember  that  acting  and  instituting  are  of  little  use  unless  we  know  how  and  what 
we  ought  to  act  and  to  institute."  "Not  so  bent  on  acting  and  instituing."  It  is  the 
being  bent  on  acting  that  is  objectionable  to  people,  the  forcing  of  premature  ideas  upon 
them  with  a  cocksureness  that  has  come  too  generally  to  be  known  as  the  mark  of  a 
college  graduate.    Please  do  not  think  that  I  am  preaching  shyness  to  you.    That  is  far 

(Cntinucd  on  page  10) 


READING  LISTS  FOR  THE  FOURTH  ALUMNAE 
WEEK-END 

The  fourth  Alumnae  Week-End,  as  planned  by  the  present  Curriculum  Committee 
of  the  Alumnae  Association  under  the  chairmanship  of  Clara  (Whips)  Dunn,  '16,  may 
be  considered  as  having  a  triple  aspect.  First  there  are  those  lectures  grouped  under  the 
heading  "Our  Changing  Standards"  and  covering  two  days,  February  the  twenty-second 
and  twenty-third.  Second  there  are  lectures  under  the  title  "Motherhood  a  Profession  for 
the  College  Woman,"  to  be  given  on  February  the  twenty-third.  And  finally  there  is 
the  program  for  children  of  alumnae  of  ages  from  four  to  twelve  which  has  been  ar- 
ranged for  Saturday  morning,  February  the  twenty-third.  This  is  the  first  time  that 
the  Alumnae  Week-End  has  not  been  treated  as  a  unit  and  this  is  the  first  time  that 
reading  lists  for  alumnae  have  been  submitted  by  our  speakers,  published  by  the  Cur- 
riculum Committee  and  mailed  to  our  alumnae.  It  is  hoped  that  the  increased  number 
of  topics  for  discussion  and  speakers  and  the  printing  of  these  reading  lists  will  arouse 
much  interest  and  make  many  of  you  eager  to  return  to  Agnes  Scott  for  the  dates 
February  the  twenty-second  and  twenty-third.  The  programs  are  given  below,  with  a 
key  to  the  book  lists  following  them. 

GROUP  I.     OUR  CHANGING  STANDARDS 
Friday,  February  22,  193  5 

a.  10:00  A.  M.  Dr.  Emma  May  Laney  of  Agnes  Scott  College,  "What  is  Expected  of 

the  Present  Day  College  Woman." 

b.  10:40  A.  M.  Dr.  Philip  Davidson  of  Agnes  Scott  College,  "Changing  Standards  of 

Present  Day  Governments." 

c.  11:20  A.   M.   Dr.   Mercer  Evans  of -Emory  University,   "Current   Thinking   Among 

the  Economists." 

Saturday,  February  23,  193  5 

d.  10:00  A.  M.  Dr.    Leroy   Loemker   of   Emory   University,    "Changing    Standards    in 

Philosophy." 

e.  10:40  A.  M.  Dr.   Roy  Kracke  of  Emory  University,  "Practice  of  Medicine  in  the 

Future." 

f.  11:20  A.  M.  Dr.  George  Hayes  of  Agnes  Scott  College  "Our  Changing  Standards 

in  Literature." 
GROUP  II.    MOTHERHOOD  A  PROFESSION  FOR  THE  COLLEGE  WOMAN 

Saturday,  February  23,  193  5 

a.  10:00  A.  M.  Clara  (Whips)  Dunn,  '16,  "Masterpiece,"  Introduction. 

b.  10:15   A.  M.   Miss  Martha   Mc Alpine  of  the  University   of   Georgia    (Georgia   State 

Chairman   of   Parent   Education),    "The   College   Woman   and   Parent 
Education." 

c.  10:45   A.M.  Allie   (Candler)   Guy,  '13,  "How  Do  I  Rate  as  a  Mother?"  Question- 

naire (Parent  Rating  Scale,  prepared  by  the  Tower  Hill  School  of  Wil- 
mington, Delaware.) 

d.  11:05   A.  M.  Mrs.    J.    O.    Martin    of    Atlanta    (Supervisor    in    the    Atlanta    Public 

School  System.)    "Through  Literature  to  Life." 

e.  11:40  A.  M.  Dr.  J.  R.  McCain  of  Agnes  Scott  College,  "Why  Agnes  Scott  Needs 

a  Department  of  the  Home." 

GROUP  III.    PROGRAM  FOR  CHILDREN  OF  ALUMNAE 

Saturday,  February  23,   193  5 

This   program   has   been   arranged   by  Llewellyn   Wilburn,    '19,   Head   of   the  Agnes 

Scott  College  Physical  Education  Department.     Alumnae  children,  from  the  ages  of  four 

to  twelve,  are  invited.  These  will  be  divided  into  three  groups:  the  pre-school  age  from 

four  to  six;  the  school  age  from  six  to  eight;  and  the  older  group  from  nine  to  twelve. 

The  pre-school  group  will  be  in    charge    of    an    alumna    with    training    in    kindergarten 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  7 

work.  The  school  group  will  be  under  the  supervision  of  another  alumna,  and  will 
enjoy  during  the  course  of  the  morning  a  grand  march,  a  period  of  story  telling,  folk 
dancing,  a  swimming  exhibition,  and  games.  The  older  group  will  be  entertained  with 
a  grand  march,  tumbling,  a  visit  to  the  Agnes  Scott  Biology  Museum,  a  swimming 
exhibition,  a  ball  game,  and  story  telling.  The  committee  which  has  worked  with 
Miss  Wilburn  in  completing  these  plans  was:  Miss  Emily  Dexter  of  the  Agnes  Scott 
Psychology  Department,  Sarah  Bowman,  '32,  Fannie  G.  (Mayson)  Donaldson,  '12,  and 
Shirley  (McPhaul)  Whitfield,  '31.  An  enjoyable  period  of  play  and  diversion  is 
guaranteed  from  ten  to  twelve  that  morning. 

OTHER  FEATURES  OF  THE  WEEK-END 

A  word  in  passing  should  be  said  about  the  other  features  of  the  Alumnae  Week- 
End.  The  Founder's  Day  program  will  be  broadcast  over  WSB  at  some  time  Friday 
evening,  the  exact  time  to  be  announced  later.  The  Atlanta  and  Decatur  Club  groups, 
in  celebration  of  Founder's  Day,  will  enjoy  a  dinner  at  the  Druid  Hills  Golf  Club  that 
evening.  On  Saturday  the  alumnae  will  be  able  to  make  arrangements  for  an  attrac- 
tive luncheon  in  the  Alumnae  Tea  Room  at  twelve-thirty.  Susan  (Young)  Eagan, 
Institute,  is  chairman  for  this  feature.  A  special  luncheon  will  also  be  arranged  for 
the  children  of  alumnae  who  will  be  spending  the  morning  of  the  twenty-third  on  the 
campus. 

READING  LISTS  FOR  THE  FOURTH  ALUMNAE  WEEK-END 

(These  books  will  be  found  in  the  Emory  University  Library,   the  Emory  Medical 
Library,  the  Agnes  Scott  College  Library,  the  Atlanta  branches  of  the  Carnegie  Library 
and  in  the  Rivers  School  Library.) 
HISTORY:     Group  I.  b. 
Coming  Struggle  for  Power,  John  Strachey 
New  Governments  in  Europe,  R.  L.  Buell 
Germany  Enters  the  Third  Reich,  Calvin  Hoover 
Strong  Man  Rules,  George  N.  Schuester 
Democracy  in  Crisis,  Harold  Laskey 
Soviet  Russia,  Chamberlain 
The  Soviet  State,  Maxwell 
Making  the  Fascist  State,  H.  W.  Schneider 
The  New  Freedom,  Walter  Lippmann 
The  Future  Comes,  Charles  A.  Beard 
Bolshevism,  Fascism,  Democracy,  Nitti 
Crisis  Government,  Lindsay  Rogers 
ECONOMICS:    Group  I.  c. 

"'Econmic  Problems  of  the  Neiv  Deal,  Atkins,  Fredrich  and  Wyckoff 
'''New  Frontiers,  Wallace 
Contemporary  Economic  Thought,  Homan 
The  Industrial  Discipline,  Tugwell 
''Individualism  and  Socialism,  Page 
*On  Money,  'Kem'merer 
Institutional  Economics,  Commons 
'''The  Masquerade  of  Monopoly,  Fetter 
Engineers  and  the  Price  System,  Veblen 

The  Economics  of  the  Recovery  Program,  Brown,  and  others 
''The  Challenge  of  Liberty,  Hoover 

*  Intended  for  popular  consumption,  most  easily  read  by  those  not  trained  in  Economics. 
PHILOSOPHY:    Group  I.  d. 

[for  a  general  survey  of  the  contempory  field] 
Types  of  Philosophy,  W.  E.  Hocking 


8  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

Introduction  to  Living  Philosophy,  D.  S.  Robinson 

Dialogues  in  Limbo,  G.  Santayana 

Living  Philosophies,  various  authors    (Both  interesting  and  valuable,    although    in    large 

part  an  example  of  what  philosophy  is  not.) 
Contemporary  American  Philosophy,  Adams  and  Montague  2  vol. 
Contemporary  English  Philosophy,  J.  H.  Muirhead  2  vol. 

[for  readable  and  reliable  accounts  of  the  history:] 
Philosophers  in  Hades,  T.  V.  Smith 
The  Searching  Mind  of  Greece,  J.  M.  Warbeke 
The  Spirit,  of  Modern  Philosophy,  Josiah  Royce  (These  lectures  to  a    Woman's   Club   of 

the  80's  have  never  been  surpassed.) 

[FOR  CLEAR  STATEMENTS  OF  THEIR  CREED  BY  PROMINENT  AMERICAN  THINKERS:] 

A  Common  Faith,  John  Dewey 
Nature  and  Life,  A.  N.  Whitehead 
MEDICINE:    Group  I.  e. 
The  Costs  of  Medical  Care,  I.  S.  Falk 

International  Studies  on  the  Relation  Between  the  Private  and  Official  Practices  of  Medi- 
cine, Sir  Arthur  Newsholme 
Medicine  and  the  State,  Sir  Arthur  Newsholme 
The  Way  of  Health  Insurance,  A.  M.  Simons 
The  Purchase  of  Medical  Care,  Pierce  Williams 
LITERATURE:    Group  I.  f. 
Rousseau  and  Romanticism,  Irving  Babbitt 
Towards  Standards,  Norman  Foerster 
Modern  Painting,  Frank  Jewett  Mather 

The  Demon  of  the  Absolute   (the  first  two  essays  of  this  volume),  Paul  Elmer  More 
On  Contemporary  Literature,  Stuart  P.  Sherman 
PARENT  EDUCATION:  Group  II. 
The  Modem  Parent,  Gary  Cleveland  Myers 

New  Horizions  for  Children  (Progressive  Education),  Sam  Wood  Cobb 
Normal  Youth,  Douglas  Thorn, 

Or 
The  Everyday  Problem  of  the  Everyday  Child,  Douglas  Thorn 
Children  of  a  New  Day,  Katherine  Glover 

The  Child,  His  Nature  and  His  Needs,  Russell  Sage  Foundation  of  Chicago,  Illinois 
The  Home  Maker  and  Her  Job,  Lillian  Gilbreth, 

Or 
Living  With  Our  Children,  Lillian  Gilbreth 
PARENT  EDUCATION:    Group  III. 

Rhythms  and  Dances  for  Elementary  Schools,  Dorothy  LaSalle 
An  Introduction  to  Child  Study,  Strang 
Child  Guidance,  Blanton  and  Blanton 
Guidance  of  Childhood  and  Youth,  Gruenberg 
Social  Problems  of  the  Family,  Grove 
Wholesome  Childhood,  Grove 
The  Inner  World  of  Childhood,  Wickes 
The  Psychology  of  the  Adolescent,  Leta  S.  Hollingsworth 
Intelligent  Parenthood,  Compiled  by  the  Chicago  Association  for  Child  Study  and  Parent 

Education 
A  Tentative  Inventory  of  the  Habits  of  Children  from   Two  to  Four  Years  of  Age, 

Ruth  Andrus 
Feeding  the  Family,  Mary  Swartz  Rose 


ANOTHER  FINE  OFFER 

J.  R.  McCain 

The  General  Education  Board,  which  has  long  been  a  staunch  friend  of  Agnes  Scott, 
has  just  proved  its  continued  confidence  and  interest  by  making  another  generous  proposi- 
tion. This  time  it  is  trying  to  encourage  the  College  to  complete  the  campaign  on 
which  we  have  been  working,  and  it  offers  an  extra  $100,000  if  the  full  amount  required 
is  in  hand  by  June  30th,  193  5. 

The  story  of  how  this  extra  offer  came  to  be  made  is  an  interesting  one.  The  College 
asked  last  year  for  a  hvo-year  extension  of  time,  but  the  Board  felt  that  only  one  year 
could  be  granted.  It  seemed  very  important,  therefore,  to  get  our  larger  subscribers  to 
pay  up  if  possible  by  next  July.  The  largest  outstanding  pledge  (really  the  largest  made 
at  all  during  the  campaign)  was  the  sum  of  $65,000  from  the  Presser  Foundation  of 
Philadelphia.  Last  September  the  President  of  the  College  visited  the  Presser  offices  to 
see  if  it  might  be  possible  for  them  to  pay  up  on  time.  They  assured  Agnes  Scott  that 
their  pledge  is  perfectly  good  and  will  be  paid  in  due  time,  but  it  will  be  impossible  to 
pay  it  by  June. 

It  looked  as  if  the  chances  of  winning  on  time  were  remote  indeed,  and  they 
were  not  at  all  brightened  when  the  Carnegie  Corporation,  to  whom  an  appeal  had  been 
made,  reported  that  they  also  could  do  nothing  at  once.  The  prospects  were  still  further 
dampened  when  the  General  Education  Board  indicated  that  it  was  still  its  belief  that 
further  extension  of  time  would  be  unwise. 

The  only  chance  that  seemed  left  was  to  get  some  additional  incentive  to  stir  the 
Agnes  Scott  supporters;  and  the  question  was  cautiously  asked  as  to  whether  the  Board 
might  be  willing  to  give  us  an  additional  Science  Building  in  case  we  should  make  an 
extra  effort  and  prove  to  be  successful.  The  suggestion  did  not  seem  to  meet  with  favor. 
The  Board  rarely  gives  any  offer  to  a  college  until  it  has  finished  entirely  previous  con- 
tracts. It  did  not  have  the  additional  funds  from  which  to  make  such  a  contract.  The 
Board  has  long  discontinued  grants  for  science  halls,  and  its  new  policies  allow  very  limited 
consideration  for  liberal  arts  colleges  of  the  Agnes  Scott  type. 

It  was  a  great  surprise,  therefore,  when  just  a  week  after  such  a  discouraging  inter- 
view, one  of  the  most  sympathetic  officers  of  the  Board  came  to  the  campus  and  asked 
to  see  about  our  need  for  better  Science  quarters.  He  still  assured  us  that  we  must  not  be 
too  expectant,  but  that  we  might  submit  a  formal  request  for  cooperation  along  the  line 
suggested.  It  seemed  a  forlorn  hope,  but  the  College  really  makes  a  fine  showing  in  its 
growth  in  science  work  and  the  need  for  better  quarters. 

We  were  quite  encouraged  a  little  later  for  President  Arnett  of  the  General  Education 
Board  came  all  the  way  to  Atlanta  to  look  over  our  building  locations  and  tentative 
building  plans;  but  we  were  troubled  that  he  was  taken  ill  the  day  he  arrived  and  was 
never  able  to  visit  the  grounds,  though  he  did  allow  a  brief  presentation  to  him  of  pictures 
and  plans  as  shown  on  paper.  We  knew  that  the  earnest  prayers  of  many  people  were 
centered  on  our  cause,  and  also  that  we  have  some  very  firm  friends  among  the  officers 
and  members  of  the  Board. 

It  was  very  thrilling  to  receive  on  December  13  th  a  telegram  from  the  General  Edu- 
cation Board  making  the  definite  $100,000  offer  and  asking  that  we  use  every  effort  to 
make  the  campaign  a  complete  success.   It  is  only  on  that  condition  that  this  gift  is  made. 

Agnes  Scott  has  still  to  collect  $23  3,000  in  cash  by  June  30th  next.    If  we  succeed, 

the  Board  will  give  us   $217,000.    The  total  sum  of   $450,000  would  then  be  spent  as 

follows:  Endowment  $150,000;  New  Library  $200,000;  Additional  Science  Hall   $100,- 

000.    The  present  library  building  will  then  be  used  for  a  Student  Activities  Building, 

filling  a  need  that  has  long  been  a  serious  one. 


10  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

This  new  set-up  will  postpone  for  the  present  the  erection  of  the  Auditorium  and 
Fine  Arts  Building,  thugh  this  is  to  come  later.  It  will  provide  what  most  of  us  on  the 
campus  believe  to  be  our  most  needed  facilities  at  this  particular  time. 

The  raising  of  our  part  of  the  money  is  a  serious  matter,  but  it  is  no  more  serious  than 
it  was  before  this  last  offer  was  made.  We  have  the  same  amount  of  money  to  collect, 
but  there  is  a  so  much  greater  reward  if  we  do  it.  We  have  now  about  $240,000  in  unpaid 
subscriptions;  but,  as  mentioned  above,  the  Presser  Foundation  pledge  of  $65,000  must 
be  counted  out  for  this  year.  Quite  a  number  of  our  most  loyal  and  devoted  alumnae 
and  friends  will  not  be  able  to  pay  in  full  by  June  30th.  It  means,  therefore,  that  we 
must  find  some  new  gifts  to  the  extent  of  perhaps  $12  5,000,  and  we  must  have  the  sug- 
gestions and  help  of  all  our  friends  in  finding  those  who  can  help  substantially. 

We  do  not  know  of  large  sums  that  are  available,  and  it  will  have  to  be  a  case  of 
many  small  sums  given  in  love  and  sacrifice  which  in  their  total  may  make  the  big 
amount  we  need.  It  will  help  if  our  subscribers  will  write  to  let  us  know  what  the 
prospects  are  of  making  payments  by  June  30th. 

It  is  a  time  when  our  prayers  and  interest  and  loyalty  will  be  most  effective. 


EDUCATION  A  TRUST 

(Continued  from  page  5) 
from  my  intention;  nor  do  I  wish  you  to  bury  your  talents.    I  am  only  saying  that  while 
your  college  would  have  you  seek  "to  make  reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail,"  she 
would  have  you  do  it  in  the  way  of  culture,  which  is  through  the  power  that  is  inherent 
in  the  beauty  and  the  truth  of  your  learning. 

Way  back  in  1618  one  James  Howell  wrote  to  his  father  thanking  him  for  "that 
most  indulgent  and  costly  Care  you  have  been  pleased  in  so  extraordinary  a  manner  to 
have  had  of  my  Breeding  (tho*  but  one  child  of  Fifteen)  by  placing  me  in  a  choice 
Methodical  Schoole  so  far  distant  from  your  dwelling  under  a  Learned  (tho'  Lashing) 
master;  and  by  transplanting  me  thence  to  Oxford  to  be  graduated;  and  soe  holding  me 
still  up  by  the  chin,  until  I  could  swim  without  Bladders.  This  patrimony  of  liberate 
Education  you  have  been  pleased  to  endow  me  withal,  I  now  carry  along  with  me  as  a 
sure  inseparable  Treasure;  nor  do  I  feel  it  any  burden  or  incumbrance  unto  me  at  all!" 

And  many  centuries  ago  the  psalmist  said,  "And  I  will  walk  at  liberty;  for  I  seek 
thy  precepts." 

Agnes  Scott  is  proud  of  her  many  graduates  who  have  kept  the  trust  she  has  reposed 
in  them;  she  confidently  expects  you  to  do  likewise. 


IS  AMERICAN  LABOR  PACIFIST? 

William   P.    Maddox 
Department  of  Government,  Harvard  University 

(Reprinted  here  through  the  courtesy  of  The  American  Scholar,  Phi  Beta  Kappa 

Publication) 

When  the  forces  for  world  peace  which  have  been  accelerated  or  retarded  during  this 
past  year  are  catalogued  and  measured  few  people  will  attach  much  significance  to  the 
radical  stand  taken  against  war  by  the  American  Socialist  Party  at  its  June  Convention. 
In  this  as  in  many  other  matters  the  popular  judgment  can  only  be  tested  by  time.  It 
cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  the  Detroit  proceedings  did  attract  wide  attention  at 
the  moment  on  account  of  the  triumph,  there  celebrated,  of  a  peace  policy  more  "mili- 
tant" than  any  to  which  the  Party  had  previously  committed  itself.  In  contrast  to 
the  usual  innocuous  proclamations  for  peace,  arbitration,  and  disarmament  a  new  and 
somewhat  menacing  note  was  struck  in  the  resolution  on  the  Socialists'  attitude  towards 
war:  "They  will  meet  war  and  the  detailed  plans  for  war  already  mapped  out  by  the 
war-making  arms  of  the  government  by  massed  war  resistance,  organized  so  far  as 
practicable  in  a  general  strike  of  labor  unions  and  professional  groups  in  a  united  effort 
to  make  the  waging  of  war  a  practical  impossibility,  and  to  convert  the  capitalist  war 
crisis  into  a  victory  for  socialism." 

Students  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  international  socialist  movement  will  readily 
identify  this  threat  of  a  general-strike-to-prevent-war.  Making  its  first  appearance  in 
the  congresses  of  the  Second  International  as  far  back  as  1891  the  strike  proposal  was 
fiercely  debated  at  Stuttgart  in  1907  and  again  at  Copenhagen  in  1910  without  the 
achievement  of  any  substantial  agreement.  Since  the  War,  however,  it  has  been  verbally 
approved  by  conferences  of  both  the  Labor  and  Socialist  International  and  of  the  Inter- 
national Federation  of  Trade  Unions  and  only  last  year  the  British  Labor  Party  reaffirmed 
its  previous  endorsement  of  1926.  So  qualified  and  contingent  was  British  Labor's  de- 
cision, however,  and  so  lacking  in  ardor  was  the  support  of  the  trade  unionist  element 
(which  developed  into  outright  opposition  this  past  September  in  the  Trades  Union 
Congress)  that  few  people  regard  it  as  raising  a  serious  obstacle  to  war.  And  with 
only  about  20,000  scattered  industrial  workers  enrolled  as  Party  members  (of  whom 
there  are  about  30,000)  the  American  Socialists  can  scarcely  expect  that  the  striking 
power  which  they  immediately  control  would  provide  even  as  much  obstruction  to  war  as 
that  of  foreign  labor. 

However  lightly  one  may  be  inclined  to  regard  this  movement  to  mobilize  the  world's 
industrial  workers  in  a  strike-action  against  an  impending  war,  no  one  can  question  the 
firmness  of  purpose  by  which  the  socialist  doctrinaires  are  motivated.  Quite  apart  from 
the  issue  as  to  its  probable  effectiveness  under  specific  circumstances,  the  strike  is 
significant  simply  as  representing  one  bit  of  propagandist  material  in  a  spirited  and 
determined  campaign  against  war.  The  substantial  and  venerable  socialist  doctrine  re- 
mains unaffected:  that  international  labor  solidarity,  manifested  by  simultaneous  peace- 
ful protests  and  demonstrations  is  capable,  even  without  the  strike,  of  stopping  war 
preparations.  This  faith  in  organized  labor's  influence  for  peace  has  been  maintained 
for  nearly  a  century.  It  has  been  preached  at  labor  conventions,  thundered  forth  on 
propagandist  platforms,  and  blazoned  in  the  headlines  of  radical  news-sheets  en  repeaterlly 
and  so  vehemently  that  it  has  acquired  all  the  trappings  of  sacred  and  inviolable  dogma. 
And  strangely  enough,  as  a  conviction  and  perhaps  as  one  of  those  inextinguishable  ideals 
it  survived  the  hurricane  of  1914  which  swept  over  the  clamor  and  protests  of  inter- 
national labor  and  socialist  leaders  as  if  they  had  been  but  the  twitterings  of  so  many 
fretful  sparrows. 

But  what,  it  may  be  asked,  has  all  this  "radical  ferment"  in  foreign  labor  move- 
ments to  do  with  American  workers?     With  the  exception  of  a  few  unions  which  are 


12  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

affiliated  with  their  respective  international  trade  secretariats,  organized  labor  (as  repre- 
sented in  the  powerful  American  Federation  of  Labor)  maintains  that  tradition  of  isola- 
tion and  fear  of  European  entanglements  so  long  characteristic  of  American  governmen- 
tal policies.  And  as  was  pointed  out  above,  the  American  Socialist  Party,  which  does  have 
international  associations,  is  simply  a  small  propagandist  society;  its  doctrine  scarcely 
touches  the  fringe  of  the  vast  body  of  industrial  workers  in  this  country.  Are  these  work- 
ers, at  least  those  organized  for  political  power  in  the  American  Federation,  as  resolute  in 
their  opposition  to  war  as  the  Europeans  profess  to  be? 

Before  considering  this  question  it  should  be  observed  that  while  the  present  isola- 
tionism of  the  American  Federation  is  obviously  at  variance  with  international  labor's 
doctrine  of  solidarity  as  the  prime  instrument  against  war,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow 
that  the  Federation  is  indifferent  to  the  peace  objective.  The  difference  may  simply 
rest  in  conceptions  of  political  method,  in  independent  action  as  opposed  to  collective 
action.  In  the  field  of  governmental  policy,  which  offers  a  useful  analogy,  the  United 
States  in  spite  of  her  apparent  hesitancy  in  participating  in  collective  measures  has  been 
an  outstanding  leader  in  certain  phases  of  the  world's  peace  movement. 

On  the  whole  the  fifty-year  record  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  in  support 
of  plans  sponsored  by  peace  movements  at  various  periods  is  fairly  clear.  Its  earliest 
action  of  importance  was!  taken  in  18  87.  Shortly  before  the  Baltimore  convention  met 
in  December  of  that  year  a  delegation  from  the  British  House  of  Commons  arrived  in 
this  country  for  the  purpose  of  urging  a  most  astonishing  thing — a  treaty  undertaking 
by  the  United  States  and  Great  Brittain  to  arbitrate  all  disputes  not  settled  by  diplo- 
matic agencies.  This,  be  it  noted,  was  pacifism  in  an  extreme  form  in  the  1 8 80's.  No 
such  sweeping  treaty  had  ever  been  made  between  modern  governments.  But  the  pro- 
posal struck  a  responsive  chord  in  the  heart  of  Samuel  Gompers,  the  fiery  young  president 
of  the  American  Federation.  He  extended  an  invitation  to  W.  R.  Cremer,  a  British 
trade  unionist  and  member  of  the  delegation,  to  speak  on  the  matter  before  the  Balti- 
more convention.  Cremer  accepted  and  his  address  was  well  received.  A  resolution 
was  immediately  introduced  declaring  that  "the  working  class — the  class  that  always 
bears  the  brunt  of  war  [had]  the  most  profound  interest  in  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  peace,"  and  that  the  Federation  hailed  with  deep  satisfaction  the  arrival 
of  the  mission.  This  gesture  of  sympathy  towards  the  arbitration  project  was  almost 
spoiled,  it  is  true,  by  a  few  Irish- American  trade  unionists  whose  interest  in  peace 
struggled  vainly  to  overcome  a  native  antipathy  to  things  British,  but  their  feelings 
were  adroitly  mollified  when  an  amendment  was  tacked  onto  the  resolution:  "We  also 
extend  our  sympathies  to  the  Irish  people  in  their  efforts  for  self-government.  .  .  ." 
Thus  was  the  peace  movement,  with  its  hand-maiden  of  Irish  freedom,  championed 
in  18  87.  When  this  joint  British- American  effort  finally  culminated  in  a  treaty  be- 
tween the  two  governments  ten  years  later  (which  treaty,  incidentally,  failed  of 
ratification  by  the  Senate)  the  Irish  took  the  initiative  in  the  Federation  conventions 
in  attacking  the  arrangement  on  the  ground  that  the  British  government  was  "unreliable." 
A  negative  endorsement  by  the  convention  was  given  the  treaty,  however,  when  the 
Irish  resolution  was  passed  on  to  the  Executive  Council  without  the  taking  of  any 
action. 

Although  the  treaty  was  thwarted  bv  the  United  States  Senate,  the  "graveyard"  of 
arbitration  treaties,  Mr.  Gompers  entered  enthusiastically  into  the  movement  supporting 
the  new  negotiations  in  1904  and  secured  the  backing  of  the  San  Francisco  Federation 
convention  in  November  of  that  year.  Again  the  Senate  balked  at  the  proceedings. 
Labor,  however,  was  persistant  in  its  demands.  Two  years  later  when  plans  for  the 
Second  Hague  Conference  were  being  discussed  the  Federation  convention  at  Minne- 
apolis adopted  a  resolution  asking  for  a  general  arbitration  treaty  and  a  "periodic  world 
assembly."     This  was  no  passing  gesture,  for  American   labor  was  thoroughly  alarmed 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alum  nae     Quarterly 13 

over  the  gradually  increasing  European  tension  and  demanded  action.  It  was  recom- 
mended that  every  local,  and  every  central  body  and  state  branch  should  communicate 
with  its  respective  members  of  Congress  on  the  subject.  A  further  resolution  insisted 
that  the  President  be  apprised  of  the  aroused  labor  feeling. 

When  the  Hague  Conference  adjourned  the  following  year  no  one  was  more  dis- 
appointed at  its  meagre  results  than  Mr.  Gompers.  Doggedly,  however,  he  and  other 
Federation  officials  kept  up  the  fight  for  the  setting  up  of  machinery  for  the  peaceful 
settlement  of  international  disputes.  A  resolution  in  1912  favoring  the  aribitration 
of  all  disputes  was  followed  in  1913  by  the  Executive  Council's  endorsement  of  the 
conciliation  treaties  which  had  become  the  pet  hobby  of  Secretary  of  State  Bryan.  On 
this  occasion  their  hopes  were  realized,  for  a  vast  and  complicated  treaty  structure 
was  set  up  which  constituted  (along  with  the  Root  treaties  of  1908)  the  American 
system  for  the  prevention  of  war  down  to  1928. 

Parallel  to  the  interest  of  the  Federation  in  arbitration  has  been  its  concern  with  the 
menace  to  peace  lying  in  large  military  and  naval  establishments.  "Militarism  and 
competitive  armaments  must  be  abolished,"  declared  the  Executive  Council  in  1914  in 
its  sweeping  condemnation  of  the  European  War.  Long  before,  in  1898,  when  the 
Tsar  of  imperial  Russia  had  sent  out  his  world-resounding  invitation  to  governments 
to  attend  a  conference  for  disarmament,  Samuel  Gompers  had  expressed  his  warm 
approval  of  the  project.  And  now  in  1914  with  the  words  of  the  Executive  Council 
ringing  in  its  ears  the  Federation  convention  at  Philadelphia  unanimously  approved  the 
typographers'  resolution  pledging  support  to  any  plan  for  the  "disarmament  of  all 
nations  to  the  furthest  extent  consistent  with  the  preservation  of  law  and  order 
throughout  the  world." 

That  labor's  interest  in  disarmament  was  not  ephemeral  has  been  demonstrated  on 
several  occasions  since  the  War.  The  action  of  the  Denver  convention  in  June,  1921 
in  approving  the  Executive  Council's  recommendation  that  the  United  States  cooperate 
with  or  take  the  initiative  in  calling  a  disarmament  conference  had  indeed  a  real  political 
significance,  for  it  strengthened  the  hands  of  President  Harding  when  less  than  a  month 
later  he  issued  his  official  invitation  to  foreign  governments  to  send  delegates  to  a  con- 
ference at  Washington.  Mr.  Gompers  and  John  Lewis  were  made  the  labor  members 
of  an  Advisory  Commission  attached  to  the  American  delegation  and  the  Federation 
organized  an  intensive  campaign,  culminating  in  200  Armistice  Day  demonstrations, 
in  support  of  the  conference.  In  this  work  Mr.  Gompers  attained  the  peak  of  his 
achievements  in  behalf  of  the  peace  movement.  When,  his  death  occurred  a  few  years 
later  the  tradition  for  which  he  more  than  any  other  individual  was  responsible  was 
firmly  implanted  in  the  Federation.  The  support  given  the  efforts  of  the  American 
Government  at  the  London  and  Geneva  Disarmament  Conferences  has  been  unquestioned 
and  a  resolution  to  build  the  navy  up  to  the  London  treaty  quota  failed  to  pass  the  Boston 
convention  in  October,  1930.  Finally,  the  Federation  has  committed  itself  (1929)  to 
the  policy  of  working  for  the  substitution  of  government  for  private  manufacture  of 
munitions. 

In  so  far  as  the  collective  organization  of  peace  is  concerned,  labor  has  also  gone  on 
record  as  being  favorably  disposed  to  the  League  of  Nations,  the  World  Court,  and  the 
Kellogg  Pact.  Even  before  the  League  Covenant  was  formulated  the  Executive  Council 
busied  itself  in  1916  with  elaborating  a  plan  for  "a  league  for  peace  to  adjust  disputes 
and  difficulties,"  with  periodic  conferences  and  a  permanent  court.  The  plan  also  pro- 
vided for  sanctions:  "Joint  use  of  both  economic  and  military  forces  of  signatory  nations 
could  be  directed  against  the  offending  nation,"  that  is,  one  engaging  in  hostilities 
"against  another  member  of  the  league  without  having  submitted  its  grievances  in  the 
proper  way  provided  by  the  agreement."  With  several  features  of  the  Covenant  so 
clearly  anticipated  it  was  but  natural  that  Mr.  Gompers  should  expect  an  endorsement 


14  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

of  the  League  when  he  returned  from  Paris  in  1919  after  serving  as  a  member  of  the 
American  Peace  Commission.  The  draft  of  the  Versailles  Treaty  had  only  been  pub- 
lished a  few  weeks  when  the  Federation  met  for  its  convention  in  Atlantic  City  in 
June.  In  spite  of  a  violent  attack  against  the  entire  League  scheme  by  Andrew  Furuseth, 
stormy  petrel  of  the  Seamen's  Union,  the  favorable  vote  was  overwhelming,  29,909  to 
420,  with  1,830  abstaining.  This  decision  was  reaffirmed  by  the  1920  convention; 
since  that  occasion,  however,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Federation  leaders  for  the  League 
has  apparently  waned  and  further  commitments  either  for  or  against  have  been  avoided. 
Still,  the  Executive  Council  has  aided  the  movement  for  joining  the  World  Court  and 
only  last  year  the  Washington  convention  urged  continuation  of  the  official  attendance 
at  the  conferences  of  the  International  Labor  Organization.  Incidentally  this  latter  action 
encouraged  President  Roosevelt  to  seek  formal  membership  for  the  United  States  this 
past  summer. 

Labor's  position  with  respect  to  American  participation  in  world  efforts  for  peace 
has  kept  pace  with  progressive  internationalist  sentiment  in  this  country.  It  is  true, 
however,  that  William  Green,  president  of  the  Federation,  is  a  less  ardent  champion  of 
a  collective  peace  system  than  was  Samuel  Gompers  but  allowances  must  be  made  for 
the  increased  concern  of  the  Federation's  Executive  Council  with  considerations  of 
political  expediency.  It  is  indeed  improbable  that  the  Council  would  revive  the  League 
issue  unless  it  were  encouraged  in  high  quarters  to  think  that  such  action  might  have 
fruitful  results  so  far  as  the  administration  is  concerned.  But  a  firm  support  of  the 
Kellogg  Pact  was  manifested  in  July,  1932  when,  during  the  Japanese  invasion  of  Man- 
churia, it  expressed  its  sympathy  with  plans  to  make  the  Pact  more  effective  if  this 
could  be  done  in  a  manner  that  would  "adequately  protect  the  people  of  the  United 
States."  True,  this  apparent  readiness  to  see  the  collective  system  strengthened  was  not 
entirely  shared  by  the  October  convention,  whose  committee  hoped  that  "thorough  tests 
of  the  treaty  in  its  present  form  [would]  be  made  before  any  element  of  physical  force, 
even  though  of  a  negative  character,  is  made  a  part  of  the  procedure  to  be  followed  in 
the  application  of  the  Pact  to  specific  cases." 

But  labor's  record  in  itself  offers  no  assurance  that  the  Federation  would  oppose  a 
particular  impending  war.  The  same,  indeed,  applies  to  the  activities  of  many  so-called 
"peace"  orgnizations.  Peace  as  it  is  usually  advocated  is  a  delightful  and  innocuous 
abstraction,  free  from  the  storms  of  emotion  which  are  immediately  aroused  when  a 
specific  grievance  develops  against  a  specific  nation.  When  newspaper  columns  scream 
aloud  the  atrocious  deeds  of  some  upstart  foreign  nation  in  trampling  on  cherished 
American  "rights  and  interests"  it  is  not  easy  to  stem  the  surge  of  indignation.  And 
yet  if  ever  a  calm  and  patient  stand  for  peace  by  powerful  political  groups  within  the 
country  is  needed,  then  is  the  time.  The  strain  is  invariably  tremendous,  for  the  im- 
pulse is  to  rush  to  the  traditional  weapons  of  war  as  a  means  of  "avenging  the  wrong." 
The  small,  still  cry  for  peace  fades  away  before  the  thunderous  demand  for  a  high  and 
noble  crusade  on  behalf  of  human  rights  so  ruthlessly  crushed  by  the  foreign  despot. 
Like  the  majority  of  other  citizens,  leaders  of  the  American  Federation  experienced  this 
tempest  of  emotions  in  1898  and  again  in  1917.  They  clamored  loudly  for  Cuban 
freedom  and  gave  generously  when  war  came.  They  raged  against  the  tyranny  and 
effrontery  of  German  militarism  and  joined  exultantly  in  the  holy  war.  "It  is  an  im- 
perative duty  from  which  there  is  no  escape,"  the  Executive  Council  solemly  pronounced 
in  1917,  "that  wage-earners  as  well  as  all  other  citizens  of  this  Republic  support  our 
government  in  its  righteous  effort  to  defend  principles  of  humanity  and  to  establish 
democracy  in  international  relations.  Because  we  desire  permanent  peace  it  is  our 
duty  to  fight  and  sacrifice  until  these  purposes  can  be  achieved." 

There  is  every  likelihood  that,  if  the  circumstances  of  1917  should  be  tragically 
repeated,  labor's  ideal  of  peace  would  collapse  just  as  swiftly  in  the  presence  of  these 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  15 

other  ideals.  In  a  moment  of  calm  deliberation  in  1927  the  Committee  on  International 
Labor  Relations  at  the  Los  Angeles  convention  stated  labor's  position  frankly:  "We  are 
not  pacifists.  We  stand  ready  to  fight  for  our  political  rights."  We  will  never  give  up 
our  right  to  fight,  continued  the  Committee,  "if  honor,  justice,  freedom  and  self- 
preservation  cannot  be  otherwise  preserved."  Has  ever  a  war  been  fought  in  modern 
times  which  did  not  involve  these  principles — for  both  sides,  How,  indeed,  does  the 
Federation  reconcile  this  position  with  its  unqualified  endorsement  the  very  next  year 
of  the  Kellogg  Pact  which  in  its  second  article  states:  "The  High  Contracting  Parties 
agree  that  the  settlement  of  all  disputes  or  conflicts  of  whatever  nature  or  of  whatever 
origin  they  may  be  (italics  mine),  which  may  arise  among  them,  shall  never  be  sought 
except  by  pacific  means?" 

Pacifism,  if  it  is  to  mean  anything,  would  manifest  itself  in  a  demand  for  the  use  of 
conciliatory  methods  of  diplomatic  consultation  and  arbitration  even  when  the  nebulous 
principle  of  "national  honor"  is  at  stake.  This  would  imply  the  cultivation  of  a  habit 
of  mind  readily  disposed,  so  far  as  national  interests  go,  to  accept  compromises,  and 
"defeats  as  well  as  victories." 

But  let  this  be  admitted,  the  sceptical  labor  leader  may  argue,  what  is  the  United 
States  to  do  if  a  similar,  determined,  pacific  disposition  does  not  dominate  the  policies 
of  the  other  country?  It  takes  only  one  to  make  a  war  and  two  to  keep  the  peace. 
There  is  merit  in  this  argument,  but  it  is  an  argument  with  implications  of  serious 
responsibilities  for  labor  and  with  similar  implications  for  every  private,  peace-minded 
organization  whose  interests  and  loyalties  are  closely  tied  up  with  those  of  related  or- 
ganizations in  other  countries.  It  is  indeed  true  that  peace  forces  operating  independently 
in  one  country  are  of  little  service  if  there  are  no  similar  forces  in  the  country  of  the 
potential  enemy.  But  if  these  peace  forces  be  part  of  an  organized  international  move- 
ment, acting  in  response  to  some  central  authority,  a  simultaneous  pressure  may  be 
brought  to  bear  in  both  nations.  And  this  need  involve  no  sympathy  with  the  "case" 
of  either  government  but  simply  a  demand  that  both  shall  use  only  pacific  methods  in 
the  settlement  of  the  dispute.  In  countries  neutral  to  the  dispute  the  same  pressure 
may  be  exerted  on  the  respective  governments  to  extend  their  "good  offices"  or  to  initiate 
a  meeting  of  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  as  provided  in  Article  XI  of  the 
League  Covenant.  This  is  the  type  of  action  that  the  international  labor  movement 
has  long  contended  might  be  efficacious,  the  type  Samuel  Gompers  was  thinking  of 
in  1907  when  he  said,  "it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  in  the  last  analysis  the  masses 
of  the  people  in  every  country  have  it  in  their  hands  to  exert  their  own  giant  will  and 
power  against  international  war,  and  that  if  otherwise  thwarted  they  will  not  hesitate 
to  exert  it." 

In  earlier  days,  particularly  under  the  impetus  of  Gompers,  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  was  cordially  disposed  towards  the  international  labor  movement.  Indeed  for 
a  brief  period — from  1910  until  its  virtual  suspension  by  the  War  and  again  in  1919 
and  1920 — the  Federation  was  formally  affiliated  with  the  International  Federation  of 
Trade  Unions  whose  headquarters  were,  and  still  are,  in  Europe.  In  1920  the  American 
leaders  clamored  for  more  group  autonomy  and  fretted  about  socialism  until  they 
finally  eased  out  of  the  international  alliance.  Like  the  State  Department  they  went 
in  for  hemispheric  self-sufficiency  and  sought  to  weld  an  instrument  known  as  the 
Pan-American  Federation  of  Labor  to  replace  the  European  connections. 

Although  the  Pan-American  Federation  has  existed  largely  on  paper  since  its  last 
conference  in  1927  the  experience  it  offers  for  American-Mexican  relations  is  very  in- 
structive. The  close  relations  which  for  a  number  of  years  after  the  Mexican  revolution 
in  1910  developed  between  the  American  and  Mexican  labor  movements  contributed  to 
the  maintenance  of  peace  between  the  two  countries.  Together  they  fought  against 
American  intervention.     In  times  of  crisis  Mexican  representatives  came  to  Washington 


16  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

and  conferred  with  the  Executive  Council  of  the  American  Federation  as  to  what  con- 
ciliatory adjustments  they  might  propose  in  the  policies  of  their  respective  governments. 
Because  they  regarded  American  intervention  or  a  Mexican-American  war  as  directly 
contrary  to  their  own  joint  interests  they  could  work  together  for  a  common  purpose. 
No  better  example  is  needed  of  the  potentialities  existing  in  the  cooperation  of  labor 
movements  for  peace.  The  conditions  of  cooperation,  it  is  true,  must  be  right.  On 
April  2,  1917,  a  few  days  before  Congress  declared  war,  it  was  but  a  futile  gesture 
that  Gompers  made  in  his  cable  to  the  German  trade  unionist,  Legien,  that  "we  are  all 
doing  our  level  best  to  avert  actual  war  and  we  have  the  right  to  insist  that  the  men 
of  labor  of  Germany  exert  their  last  ounce  of  effort" — to  get  the  German  government 
to  meet  American  demands!  Gompers  himself  was  convinced  that  Germany  was  the 
aggressor  and  the  German  trade  unionists'  hands  were  tied  because  of  the  exigencies  of 
the  War  in  Europe. 

What  are  the  prospects  today?  American  labor's  relations  with  Mexican  labor  have 
not  been  smooth  and  it  is  uncertain  whether  they  would  stand  the  strain  of  threatening 
war.  Relations  with  the  Japanese  labor  movement  were  particularly  friendly  when  it 
was  struggling  to  get  a  footing  in  1916  and  1917  but  the  immigration  controversy 
has  been  responsible  for  keeping  the  two  movements  apart  since  the  War.  In  the  case 
of  Soviet  Russia  the  violent  antipathy  of  Mr.  Green  and  his  associates  towards  every- 
thing Communist  has  been  little  alleviated  by  the  reestablishment  of  diplomatic  inter- 
course between  the  two  governments.  Relations  with  the  British  Trades  Union  Con- 
gress are  the  most  cordial  of  all.  Every  year  for  the  last  40  the  two  great  national 
labor  conventions  have  exchanged  fraternal  delegates  with  each  other.  About  80 
American  trade  unionists,  including  most  of  the  influential  leaders,  have  attended 
sessions  of  the  British  Trades  Union  Congress  during  these  years  and  a  similar  number 
have  come  to  American  labor  conventions  from  Great  Britain.  Through  these  contacts 
there  have  been  built  up  ties  of  personal  friendship  and  mutual  sympathy  which  would 
be  of  immense  service  in  producing  concerted  action  for  peace  if  serious  trouble  arose 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain. 

The  friendly  connections  with  British  labor  have  had  important  consequences  within 
the  past  few  months.  In  the  first  place  they  probably  influenced  the  American  Federa- 
tion's decision  to  move  towards  Geneva.  With  the  United  States  now  a  member  of  the 
International  Labor  Organization  the  Federation  will  join  the  government  and  industry 
in  sending  delegates  to  the  Organization's  conferences.  American  labor  will  thus  be 
drawn  into  continuous  contact  with  foreign  labor.  Its  genuine  interest  in  the  new 
venture  was  manifested  by  the  presence  of  Mr.  Harold  B.  Butler,  Director  of  the  Inter- 
national Labor  Office,  at  the  Federation's  San  Francisco  convention  this  past  October. 
Moreover,  the  presence  at  the  same  convention  of  Mr.  Walter  M.  Citrine,  a  British  trade 
unionist  who  is  president  of  the  International  Federation  of  Trade  Unions,  was  also 
significant.  Impelled  by  a  confidence  in  British  leadership  and  by  a  growing  concern 
with  the  menace  of  Fascism  to  continental  trade  unionism  the  convention  adopted  a 
resolution  recommending  that  the  Executive  Council  reconsider  the  question  of  affilia- 
tion with  the  International  Federation.  This  body  has  been  crippled  by  the  loss  of  the 
powerful  German  section  and  would  joyfully  welcome  American  support  at  this  time. 
The  prospects  for  American  labor  cooperation  with  foreign  labor  movements  seem, 
therefore,  to  be  increasing.  Labor  leaders  insist  that  such  collaboration  would  be  economic 
rather  than  political  and  therefore  without  significance  for  peace.  Let  this  explanation  of 
purpose  be  admitted.  But  even  admitting  further  that  American  labor's  devotion  to 
peace  is  today  tepid,  contingent,  and  vulnerable,  the  fact  remains  that  the  relations  with 
British  labor  already  contribute  to  peace  and  that  the  understanding  with  Mexican  labor 
triumphed  for  some  years  over  governmental  differences.  Should  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  extend  the  range  of  its  friendships  that  action  could,  and  might,  be 
serviceable  for  international  peace. 


EXPERIENCES  OF  A  YEAR  IN  FRANCE 

Mary  Sprinkle,  '31 
(Winner  of  the  Quenelle  Harrold  Fellowship  in  1933) 

It  was  one  of  those  glorious  autumn  afternoons,  warmed  by  the  sunshine  of  the  Indian 
summer,  and  richly  colored  by  the  myriad  shades  of  the  turning  leaves. 

"On  ferme,  on  ferme,"  the  voice  of  the  guards  calling  closing  time  rang  throughout 
the  Luxembourg  Gardens.  The  little  old  lady  sitting  on  the  park  bench  did  not  hear  them. 
She  was  lost  in  a  reverie.  As  she  watched  the  gay  groups  of  children  playing  marbles, 
rolling  hoops,  shouting  and  laughing  as  they  ran  to  and  fro  among  the  tall  trees  and  up 
and  down  the  shady  lanes  of  the  garden,  her  thoughts  went  back  to  the  spring-time  of 
her  childhood,  to  the  summer  of  her  girlhood,  to  scenes  such  as  those  before  her  now.  They 
were  as  perfectly  mirrored  in  her  memory  as  the  little  boy  and  his  sail-boat  were  in  the 
nearby  fountain.  And  now  in  the  winter  of  her  life  this  was  all  of  happiness  that  she 
had,  these  sweet  hours  in  the  beautiful  garden.  How  infinitely  lonely,  how  empty,  how 
melancholy  would  her  days  be  without  them. 

"On  ferme,  Madame."  The  guard  tapped  her  on  the  shoulder.  She  got  up  and  hurried 
along  toward  the  big  gate  which  was  already  closing  upon  those  who,  like  her,  had 
lingered  on  until  the  last  moment. 

For  two  months  I  lived  in  a  pension  on  Boulevard  Raspail,  just  off  the  Luxembourg 
Gardens.  Scarcely  a  day  passed  when  I  did  not  go  through  them  or  by  them,  and 
frequently  I  went  to  the  open  air  concerts  there.  I  was  continually  struck  with  the  love 
the  French  people  have  for  the  out-of-doors.  This  love  is  revealed  not  only  by  the 
beautiful  public  gardens  both  in  Paris  and  in  all  the  cities  of  France,  which  are  always 
crowded  with  people;  but  also  by  the  famous  open  air  cafes  which  in  warm  weather  have 
tables  out  to  the  curb,  and  by  the  street  displays  of  merchandise.  In  the  cities  large  stores 
daily  put  table  after  table  of  goods  out  on  the  sidewalk,  and  take  them  in  at  night.  In 
the  towns  the  many  market  places,  flower,  vegetable  and  otherwise,  bespeak  the  same  love 
of  the  out-doors.  In  Grenoble,  even  on  the  cold  winter  days  booths  were  set  up  on  the 
village  squares,  and  merchandise  of  all  kinds  was  sold.  In  private  homes  when  the 
weather  permits,  the  French  eat  outside,  whether  it  be  in  the  gardens  of  the  villas  or 
on  the  narrow  window  balconies  of  the  apartment  houses.  It  is  indeed  an  odd  sight  to 
see  a  table  set  for  a  meal  on  a  tiny  balcony  two  or  three  stories  above  a  city  street.  I 
wonder  that  France  did  not  have  pent-houses  long  before  we  Americans. 

It  seems  to  be  innate,  this  trait  of  the  French  people,  and  it  fits  in  with  their  con- 
ception of  how  the  greatest  happiness  can  be  got  in  life,  by  a  leisurely  existence  with  time 
to  work  a  little,  to  contemplate,  to  converse  and  be  gracious.  As  an  American  woman, 
married  to  a  Frenchman  puts  it:  "The  tempo  of  life  in  France  makes  for  true  enjoyment. 
In  America  some  inward  unrest,  some  need  of  excitement  seems  always  to  be  driving  us 
on.  .  .  .  When  I  was  first  married,  twenty  minutes  was  the  longest  time  I  could  happily 
spend  in  a  chair  on  the  boulevard.  .  .  .  Now  I  feel  with  satisfaction  that  I  could  spend 
unlimited  time  absorbing  one  single  'cafe  noir'  and  watching  life  go  by.  I  have  found  the 
inner  peace  which  enables  me  to  enjoy  an  endless  series  of  moments  each  for  itself." 

The  longest  part  of  my  sojourn  in  France,  about  eight  months,  was  spent  in  Grenoble. 
A  city  of  some  eighty  thousand  inhabitants,  it  is  situated  in  the  ancient  province  of 
Dauphine  in  Southeastern  France,  in  the  department  of  the  Isere,  which  gets  its  name 
from  the  pretty  little  river  running  through  the  town.  Beautiful  snow-capped  moun- 
tains stretch  into  the  distance  as  far  as  one  can  see,  a  superb  and  ethereal  setting  which 
is  unforgettable.  Glove  making  is  the  chief  industry  of  Grenoble.  It  is  important  histor- 
ically for  its  role  in  the  French  Revolution,  and  is  knwn  in  the  literary  world  as  the 
birthplace  of  Stendhal  (Henri-Marie  Beyle)  to  whom  a  museum  was  dedicated  while  I 
was  there.  Its  sporting  resources  and  its  University  are  probably  its  greatest  attractions 
for  foreigners.  To  talk  seriously  in  Grenoble  is  to  talk  sports — winter  sports:  skiing,  ice- 
skating,  ice  hockey,  and  tobogganing.    The  natives  themselves  are  almost  all   amateurs 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 


of  one  or  the  other  of  these  sports,  and  many  Scandinavian  athletes  come  each  winter 
to  participate  in  the  exhibitions  held  in  the  resorts  around  Grenoble.  Monsieur  Desclos 
said  to  me  when  I  called  to  see  him  at  the  National  Office  of  Universities  in  Paris,  "You 
must  send  me  a  picture  of  yourself  from  Grenoble,  standing  on  your  head  in  the  snow 
with  your  skiis  on."  Needless  to  say,  I  was  reminded  of  his  words  many  times,  while  I 
was  learning  to  ski.  The  season  is  on  from  November  until  late  March,  and  hardly  a 
week-end  passes  that  one  of  the  Alpine  clubs  does  not  organize  an  excursion.  The  buses 
and  tramways  leave  about  6  A.  M.  and  by  the  time  the  sun  is  up  they  have  reached  the 
glorious  heights  of  the  skiing  resorts.  From  a  distance  they  resemble  giant  ant-hills,  the 
white  snow  is  so  thickly  dotted  with  the  "Skieurs"  in  their  blue  and  brown  suits.  The 
patience  of  the  true  lover  of  the  sport  is  limitless,  and  the  great  recompense  is  to  finally 
be  able  to  descend  the  steep  slopes  with  the  perfect  poise,  precision  and  grace  of  the  expert. 
It  is  amusing  and  exhilarating,  and  both  young  and  old  have  unbounded  enthusiasm  for 
it.  I  saw  a  man  fall  and  break  his  leg.  His  one  regret  was  that  he  would  not  be  able  to 
ski  any  more  that  season.  It  amounts  almost  to  a  cult.  It  establishes  an  intimacy  be- 
tween one  and  the  Alps.  It  is  a  manner  of  addressing  oneself  to  the  heart  of  the  snows. 
It  presents  new  worlds  to  conquer. 

Courses  for  foreign  students  were  offered  at  the  University  of  Grenoble,  before  they 
were  offered  at  any  other  of  the  provincial  universities.  Consequently,  student  life  in 
Grenoble  is  unique.  The  foreign  students:  English,  American,  Oriental,  Algerian  and 
from  all  of  the  European  countries,  make  up  a  distinct  and  separate  part  of  the  University. 
They  attend  the  same  lecture  courses,  and  even  in  the  small  classes  of  five  or  six,  you  may 
find  yourself  with  an  Italian,  a  Yugoslavian,  a  German,  a  Dutchman,  etc.  What  a  singu- 
lar privilege  it  is,  too,  to  know  these  young  people  from  all  countries  and  climes.  They 
are  intelligent  and  attractive.  A  spirit  of  good  fellowship  prevails,  and  fosters  friendships 
which  are  certainly  making  for  international  peace  and  harmony.  One  has  little  contact 
with  the  French  students  in  the  University,  unless  one  follows  courses  other  than  those 
offered  to  foreigners.  There  is,  however,  an  English  speaking  club  for  English,  American 
and  French  students.  It  meets  twice  a  month  and  books  are  reviewed  or  plays  given.  On 
one  occasion  Mrs.  Arnold  Bennett  spoke. 

The  organization  of  European  Universities  is  somewhat  different  from  that  of  our 
own  institutions  of  learning.  Consequently  it  is  a  bit  difficult  at  first  to  get  adjusted 
and  oriented.  Little  or  no  guidance  is  given  by  faculty  members,  the  inference  being 
that  you  come  there  knowing  what  you  want  to  study.  Hence  what  is  accomplished 
depends  upon  the  individual's  own  initiative,  research  and  industry.  Such  a  system 
necessitates  a  cultivation  of  the  habit  of  thinking  for  one's  self,  "that  habit  which  is  the 
very  soul  of  liberty."  One  might  say  that  there  is  no  beginning  or  ending  of  studies, 
and  preeminence  is  given  to  a  full  and  rounded  development  of  the  human  faculties.  "The 
ideal  of  culture  is  almost  a  religion  on  which  all  are  agreed." 

While  in  Grenoble  I  stayed  with  a  family  of  three  on  the  rue  Renauldon  in  one  of  the 
oldest  sections  of  the  town.  From  the  balcony  outside  my  window  I  could  look  down 
on  the  narrow  little  street.  Shop-keepers  called  to  one  another  from  their  door-steps. 
The  passersby  were  mostly  peasant  women  with  their  great  shawls  and  huge  baskets,  and 
little  boys  dressed  in  black  smocks  and  berets  with  long  loaves  of  bread  under  their  arms, 
their  wooden  shoes  clattering  on  the  cobble  stones  as  they  ran.  Through  Madame 
Blondeau,  I  met  many  charming  and  interesting  French  people.  From  time  to  time  I  was 
invited  to  their  homes  for  a  "gouter"  or  tea.  These  teas  were  given  by  mothers  and 
daughters  together.  Usually  everyone  talked  and  knit,  unless  the  hostess  had  arranged 
for  someone  to  sing  or  play. 

I  must  tell  you  of  an  unusual  coincidence.  I  went  frequently  to  the  home  of  a 
University  Professor's  wife,  an  American  woman.  She  married  while  studying  in  Gren- 
oble, and  always  gives  a  cordial  welcome  to  her  compatriots.  My  first  visit  there  I  met 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 19 

her  mother,  a  woman  of  about  eighty,  who  has  since  died,  and  found  to  our  mutual  sur- 
prise that  she  had  been  reared  in  Southwest  Virginia,  in  my  own  County.  She  had  met 
my  mother  years  ago,  and  her  mother  had  named  my  home  town,  Marion.  She  spoke 
very  highly  of  Agnes  Scott,  and  was  delighted  to  hear  that  Miss  Alexander  had  been 
my  French  teacher.    She  had  known  her  father  and  her  family. 

My  Christmas  vacation  began  in  a  very  unusual  manner.  The  night  of  December 
23  rd.  I  left  Grenoble  with  another  American  girl  for  Rome.  We  changed  trains  about 
midnight  at  Chambery,  a  junction  in  the  Alps,  for  Turin,  Italy.  Christmas  Eve  morn- 
ing at  five-thirty  we  awoke  to  find  ourselves  in  Dijon,  France,  half-way  to  Paris.  We 
had  taken  the  Turino-Paris  train,  instead  of  the  Paris-Turino.  No  conductor  had  come 
through  to  see  our  tickets,  and  sorry  was  our  plight.  We  explained  to  the  station  master 
that  we  had  made  a  great  mistake.  "Tout  chemin  mene  a  Rome"  (all  roads  lead  to 
Rome) ,  he  replied  laughing,  and  wrote  something  on  our  tickets  which  enabled  us  to 
take  the  next  train  (six  hours  later)  for  Rome  without  paying  extra:  a  Christmas  present 
from  the  French  government,  we  called  it!    Thus  en  route  to  Rome  we  visited  Dijon. 

My  year  was  full  of  novel  experiences  and  I  have  returned  with  varied  impressions. 
I  have  hardly  known  where  to  begin,  and  what  to  include.  I  recall  a  talk  for  students, 
which  I  heard  at  the  American  church  in  Paris.  The  speaker  told  the  story  of  the  Rus- 
sian Peasant,  who  desired  great  possessions.  A  wealthy  nobleman  hearing  of  his  wish, 
offered  him  all  of  the  land  that  he  could  traverse  in  one  day,  starting  at  sunrise  and 
returning  to  the  village  before  nightfall.  Late  afternoon  found  the  peasant  far  from 
the  village,  for  each  time  that  he  started  to  turn  back,  he  saw  in  the  distance  some  fair 
meadow,  or  wooded  glen  which  he  wanted  to  include.  He  quickened  his  footsteps.  He 
ran,  and  just  at  dusk  he  staggered  into  the  town  and  fell  dead  from  exhaustion.  "Paris 
has  so  much  to  offer,"  continued  the  speaker,  "art,  history,  science,  society — you  cannot 
include  everything.    You  must  choose  a  few  things." 

In  writing  to  you  about  France,  I  have  chosen  to  tell  you  of  the  things  which  meant 
most  to  me,  and  I  hope  that  they  will  prove  interesting  to  you. 


FROM  THE  ALUMNI  FEATURES  SERVICE 

"I  have,  I  confess,  been  somewhat  amused  by  some  of  the  statements  that  have  been 
made  that  colleges  and  universities  are  hotbeds  of  radicalism.  I  believe  that  any  one  who 
has  had  experience  with  them  and  who  has  seen  the  extraordinary  difficulty  with  which 
changes  come  about  in  them  could  scarcely  share  in  such  a  feeling  .  .  . 

"On  the  whole,  it  seems  a  fair  generalization,  subject,  of  course,  to  many  exceptions 
and  qualifications,  that  our  system  of  higher  education  performs  the  social  function  which 
it  does  perform  today  more  because  of  outside  than  of  inside  pressure  and  influences.  It 
has  been  shaped,  in  other  words,  more  largely  by  the  desires  of  students,  of  parents  and 
of  public  opinion  generally,  in  its  main  objectives  and  purposes,  than  by  those  of  its 
faculties  .  .  . 

"Our  system  of  higher  education,  considered  as  a  whole,  is  today  one  of  our  most 
definitely  motivated,  least  flexible  and  highly  static  of  our  social  institutions." — Harry 
Woodburn  Chase,  President  of  New  York  University. 


«  News  From  the  Alumnae  Office  » 


We    Made    the    1934    Reunion    Supper: 

Dorothy  Cassel,  Sybil  Grant,  Gladys  Pratt, 
Rossie  Ritchie,  Mary  McDonald,  Kathryn 
Maness,  Louise  Schuessler,  Alma  Groves, 
Elinor  Hamilton,  Mary  Hamilton,  Isabel 
Lowrance,  Gussie  Rose  Riddle,  Mary  Ames, 
Elizabeth  Hickson,  Dorothy  Potts,  Rudene 
Taffar,  Martha  England,  Elizabeth  John- 
son, Isabella  Wilson,  Elizabeth  Winn,  Sarah 
Austin.  This  reunion  event  took  place  on 
Saturday,  December  1,  in  the  Alumnae 
House.  Kathryn  Maness  was  the  efficient 
chairman  on  arrangements. 

The  Glee  Club,  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Lewis  H.  Johnson,  gave  two  programs 
of  Christmas  carols  on  December  16,  the 
first  in  the  morning  at  the  First  Baptist 
Church  of  Atlanta,  the  second  in  the  Agnes 
Scott  Chapel  at  seven-thirty  that  night. 
The  college  String  Ensemble,  directed  by 
Mr.  Christian  W.  Dieckmann,  accompanied 
the  Glee  Club  at  the  Christmas  Vesper 
Service. 

The  Granddaughters'  Club  entertained 
their  escorts  at  dinner  in  the  Alumnae 
House  on  Thursday  evening,  December  6,  at 
six-thirty  o'clock.  There  were  seventeen 
couples.  Chairmen  for  the  occasion  were: 
Entertainment,  Barton  Jackson,  '37,  and 
Kathleen  Daniel,  '37;  Dates,  Fannie  B. 
Harris,  '37,  Mary  Lyon  Hull,  '38,  and  Lo- 
raine  Smith,  '36;  Decorations,  Elizabeth 
Forman,  '36,  Virginia  Gaines,  '36,  and  Lu- 
cile  Cairns,  '37. 

The  Atlanta  Club  Group  under  the 
chairmanship  of  Cora  (Morton)  Durrett, 
'24,  and  the  co-chairmanship  of  Margaret 
(McDow)  M^cDougall,  '24,  gave  five  dozen 
cups  and  saucers  and  forty  teaspoons  to 
the  Alumnae  House  in  November.  This  is 
the  first  of  the  working  groups  to  com- 
plete its  project,  and  its  donation  was  most 
acceptable.  This  group  cooperated  with  a 
gioup  of  Decatur  alumnae  in  entertain- 
ing at  tea  for  the  faculty  on  November  20. 

A  Fellowship  for  Women  Graduates  who 

give  promise  of  usefulness  in  the  public 
service  is  offered  by  Barnard  College.  The 
award  is  $1,300,  the  graduate  study  to  be 
carried  on  at  an  approved  college  or  uni- 
versity in  one  or  more  of  the  related  fields 
of  History,  Economics,  Government  and 
Social  Science.  This  is  open  to  graduates 
since  June,  1929.  Applications  must  be 
filed  with  the  Faculty  of  Barnard  not  later 
than  March  1,  1935.  Further  information 
will  ibe  furnished  on  request  by  the  alumnae 
office. 


Pi  Alpha  Phi  has  debated  with  a  team 
of  English  debaters  and  a  team  from 
Emory  University.  The  team  against 
Emory  will  debate  against  Wesleyan  Col- 
lege in  February. 

The  French,  Spanish,  and  German  Clubs 

sang  carols  on  the  campus  on  the  eve  of 
the  Christmas  holidays,  December  18. 

The  Boarding  Sophomores  were  enter- 
tained at  a  series  of  parties  by  the  local 
chapter  of  Mortar  Board  in  groups  from 
December  11  through  14.  Students  from 
Tech,  Emory  and  Columbia  Seminary  were 
invited  as  dates  for  the  sophomores. 

Members  of  the  Senior  Class  were  honor 
guests  at  a  reception  at  which  the  faculty 
entertained  for  them  on  Saturday  night, 
December  15. 

Faculty  who  have  attended  recent  con- 
ventions are:  Professor  Mary  Stuart  Mac- 
Dougall  of  the  Biology  Department  and 
Associate  Professor  T.  M.  Whitiker  at- 
tended a  meeting  of  the  American  As- 
sociation for  the  Advancement  of  Science 
in  Pittsburgh  from  December  27th  through 
the  29th.  Both  of  them  presented  papers, 
Dr.  MacDougall's  "Cytological  Studies  of 
Genus  Chilodonella  with  Special  Reference 
to  Chromatin  Elimination  from  the  Mac- 
ronuceus  During  Division,"  and  Dr.  Whit- 
ker's  "Plant  Cytology."  Professor  Philip  G. 
Davidson  of  the  History  Department  at- 
tended the  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  the 
American  History  Association  in  Washing- 
ton, D.  C,  from  December  27th  through  the 
29th.  Professor  George  P.  Hayes  of  the 
English  Department  and  Professor  Muriel 
Hai-n  of  the  German  Department  attended 
the  annual  meeting  of  the  Modern  Lan- 
guage Association  at  Swarthmore  and 
Philadelphia,  Penn.,  from  December  27th 
through  the  29th. 

$*     *     *     * 

Faculty  Children  enjoy  a  dancing  class 
with  Miss  Harriette  Haynes  of  the  Physical 
Education  Department.  In  December  the 
parents  of  this  group  were  invited  to  be 
guests  of  the  dancing  class,  at  which  time 
Miss  Haynes  entertained  the  children  and 
their  parents  at  an  informal  tea. 
^     *     *     * 

The  Georgia  A.  A.  U.  W.  convention  will 
be  held  in  Atlanta  on  January  18th  and 
19th.  The  College  will  entertain  the  group 
at  lunch  on  the  nineteenth,  and  the  Alumnae 
Association  will  be  hostesses  at  after-din- 
ner coffee. 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 


21 


The  Book  Exhibit  during  Thanksgiving 
week-end  was  most  appreciated  on  the 
campus.  Many  attended  this  exhibit  and 
enjoyed  seeing  a  vast  number  of  inter- 
esting books,  old  and  new,  fiction  and 
non-fiction.  Janef  Preston,  '21,  and  Miss 
Louise  McKinney  of  the  English  Depart- 
ment were  responsible  for  the  feast  to 
book  lovers. 

The  Regional  Conference  of  Alumni  Sec- 
retaries will  be  held  in  Atlanta  on  Febru- 
ary 1st  and  2nd,  with  the  Alumni  Secretary 
of  Emory  University,  Bob  Whitaker,  and 
the  Agnes  Scott  Alumnae  Secretary,  Dor- 
othy Hutton,  '29,  as  co-hosts.  The  Alumnae 
Association  will  entertain  at  tea  for  this 
group   on   the   afternoon   of   the   second. 


the  Kappa  Alpha  Theta:  "Here  is  what 
happens  to  an  average  thousand  names  on 
a  mailing  list  after  three  years,  according 
to  Printer's  Ink:  410  have  changed  ad- 
dresses from  one  to  four  times;  261  have 
moved  to  parts  unknown;  7  have  died;  1 
has  gone  to  jail.  Examination  of  our  own 
mailing  list  gives  the  further  informa- 
tion that  of  the  410  who  have  changed  ad- 
dresses from  one  to  four  times,  410  have 
forgotten  to  notify  us  of  same  from  one  to 
four  times." 

New  Year's  Resolutions  are  now  in  order. 
If  this  copy  of  the  Quarterly  comes  to  you 
by  virtue  of  your  1934  membership,  let  us 
hope  that  the  next  one  will  come  by  rea- 
son  of   your   1935   check! 


The  Founder's  Day  Program  will  be 
broadcast  over  WSB  on  February  22.  The 
exact  time  will  be  announced  in  February, 
and  it  is  hoped  that  an  hour  for  a  good 
reception  of  the  program  can  be  secured. 

The  1934  Silhouette  was  awarded  a  cup 
given  by  the  National  Students'  Publica- 
tion Association  for  ail-American  rating. 
This  is  the  fourth  successive  year  that  this 
cup  has   been  awarded  to   Agnes   Scott. 

The  Birmingham  Club  has  elected  the 
following  officers  for  the  year:  President, 
Florence  Kleybecker,  '33;  Vice-President, 
Olivia  Swann,  '26;  Secretary,  Cornelia 
Cartland,  ex-'24;  Treasurer,  Mary  Ray 
Dobyns,  '28.  This  group  entertained  at  tea 
in  honor  of  Elinor  Hamilton,  '34,  Field 
Alumnae  Secretary,  in  November.  Those 
present  were:  Frances  (Burwell)  Chisolm, 
Institute;  Pau'ine  Willoughby,  '30;  Eleanor 
Bonham,  '30;  Lucy  (Durr)  Dunn,  '19; 
Laura  (Oliver)  Fuller,  '22;  Cornelia  Cart- 
land,  ex-'24;  Margaret  (Griffin)  Williams, 
'24;  Frances  Bitzer,  '25;  Sallie  (Horton) 
Lay,  '25;  Florence  Kleybecker,  '33. 
*     *     *     * 

Postage  on  returned  Quarterlies  is  get- 
ting to  be  quite  an  item.  Please  remember 
to  notify  the  office  of  your  change  of 
address,  so  that  these  can  reach  you  with- 
out delay  and  be  sent  without  extra  charge 
from  the  office.  However,  we  do  not  seem 
to  be  alone  in  this  respect.    We  quote  from 


The  Anniston,  Ala.,  Alumnae  entertained 
in  November  in  honor  of  the  Field  Alumnae 
Secretary,  Elinor  Hamilton,  '34.  Those 
present  were:  Mary  Evelyn  (Arnold) 
Barker,  ex-'24;  Mildred  Goodrich,  ex-'20; 
Caroline  (Agee)  Rowan,  '21;  Rosa  White, 
'29;  Virginia  Ordway,  '24. 

*  *     *     * 

The  Field  Alumnae  Secretary    has    met 

with  unusual  success  in  her  trips  so  far 
this  fall.  The  alumnae  in  Alabama,  Geor- 
gia, North  Carolina,  in  the  towns  visited, 
have  proved  most  cooperative.  A  word  of 
thanks  for  them  is  only  a  small  measure  of 
the  gratitude  felt  by  the  office  and  the 
College  for  their  splendid  help. 

The  New  York  Club  met  for  tea  in  De- 
cember.   Sara  Townsend,  '30,  is  the  newly 

elected  president. 

*  *     *     * 

Adele  Arbuckle,  '31,  was  honored  in  a  re- 
cent issue  of  the  Davidson  College  alumni 
publication.  An  attractive  snapshot  was 
made  more  explicit  by  commendation  of 
her  fine  work  in  the  alumni  office. 

*  *     *     * 

The  New  Orleans  Club  had  a  luncheon 
meeting  in  October  at  Arnaud's  Restaurant 
and  a  luncheon  in  December  as  guests  of 
Stuart  (Sanderson)   Dixon,  ex-'18. 

sj;  %  *  sH 

The  Washington  Club  has  changed  its 
schedule  of  meetings  to  a  luncheon  hour, 
since  so  many  of  the  group  are  working. 


'Dates  to  <rKgmember 

February  22  and  23 ,  1935! 

he  Fourth  Alumnae 
Week-End  at  Agnes 
Scott 


£K  "Bate  ©o  Keep 

February  22,   1935! 

'he  Agnes  Scott  Foun- 
der's Day  Broadcast 
over  W  S  B 


U.UMNAE  OFFICfe 
tA  YOUNG  ALUMNAE  HOUSE 

SNES  SCOTT  COLLEGE 
DECATUR,  GEORGIA 


®ljr  Alumna?  (^uart^ri^r 


Annm  £>oitt  (Mbnr 


April,  1935 


♦j*  «5»  *5*  *$*  *J*  *J»  *J*  *J*  *J*  *J*  *J*  *J*  **♦  *J*  *J*  *■**  ***  *J*  *♦*  ***  *J*  ***  *J*  ***  *J*  *J*  *J*  ***  *J*  ♦**  ***  *J*  *J*  *5*  *+*  *J*  *J*  *J*  *J*  *J*  *+*  ***  ***  *+*  *+*  *5*  "J*  *♦*  *J*  *i*  *5*  *+*  *+*  *♦*  *♦*  *5*  *5*  *2H3M3* 

Cfje  Bgnes  Jkott  Sllumnae  <®uarterlp 

Published  in  Nov.,  Jan.,  April  and  July  by  the  Agnes  Scott  Alumnae  Association 
Entered  as  second  class  matter  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  August,  1912. 

Volume  XIII  April,    193  5  Number    3 

TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Recent  Portrait  of  Dr.  J.  R.  McCain Front  Cover 

The   Woman's   College   and   Its   Alumnae 1 

Dr.  Emma  May  Laney 

Changing   Standards   of   Modern   Governments 4 

Dr.  Philip  Davidson 

Current  Thinking  Among  Economists 6 

Dr.  Mercer  Evans 

Founder's  Day  Greeting  to  the  Alumnae 13 

Dean  Nannette  Hopkins 

A  Message  from  the  Trustees 14 

Mr.  George  Winship 

The  Building  Program  of  Agnes  Scott 15 

President  J.  R.  McCain 

A  Word  about  the  Alumnae  Week-End 17 

Lucfle  Alexander,  '11 

Changing  Emphases  in  Philosophy 18 

Dr.  Leroy  Loemker 

Practice  of  Medicine  in  the  Future 2  3 

Dr.  Roy  R.  Kracke 

Changing  Standards  in  Literature 31 

Dr.  George  P.  Hayes 

Masterpiece  37 

Clara  Elizabeth   (Whips)   Dunn,  '16 

Through  Literature  to  Life 41 

Mrs.  J.  O.  Martin 

Founder's  Day  at  Home  and  Abroad 45 

Sara  Cook,  '3  5 

Registration  for  the  Fourth  Alumnae  Week-End 47 

Message  from  the  Alumnae  Office Back  Cover 

Dorothy  Hutton,  '29 


THE  WOMAN'S  COLLEGE  AND  ITS  ALUMNAE 

Dr.  Emma  May  Laney 
Associate  Professor  of  English  at  Agnes  Scott  College 
Little  more  than  a  century  ago,  in  1819  to  be  exact,  Frances  Willard  was  so  bold 
as  to  go  before  the  legislature  of  New  York  with  a  plan  for  improving  "female  educa- 
tion." Although  a  few  academies  for  women  already  existed,  notably  Elizabeth  Academy 
in  Mississippi  in  1817,  none  of  them  was  the  equal  of  existing  schools  for  men,  and 
Frances  Willard's  step  was  the  real  beginning  of  a  movement  that  resulted  soon  after 
the  middle  of  the  century  in  the  founding  of  Mount  Holyoke,  Vassar,  Wellesley,  and 
Smith,  and  that  has  produced  the  numerous  liberal  arts  colleges  for  women  all  over  the 
country  today. 

Momentous  changes  have  come  about  in  woman's  education  in  this  brief  century. 
In  those  first  years  there  were  persistent  questions.  "How  much  ignorance  can  woman 
part  with  and  yet  keep  her  delicacy?"  "How  much  knowledge  can  the  female  head 
hold?"  "Can  woman  retain  her  health  and  yet  become  educated?"  These  questions  not 
only  have  been  answered  but  now  seem  absurd. 

Changes  in  endowment  and  physical  equipment  have  also  been  great.  The  $2,000 
which  Frances  Willard  after  much  work  obtained  for  Troy  Academy  has  been  increased  to 
the  millions  of  today.  The  two  hooks  on  the  door  which  were  Matthew  Vassar's  pro- 
vision for  taking  care  of  feminine  clothes  have  given  place  in  many  colleges  to  luxurious 
suites,  with  the  result  that  prospective  students  often  select  their  college  on  the  basis 
of  its  private  baths;  the  one  tennis  set  for  which  the  founder  of  Wellesley  had  to  send 
to  France,  since  none  was  obtainable  in  the  states,  has  been  replaced  by  swimming  pools 
and  gymnasiums  that  rival  those  of  the  best  country  club.  The  board  in  one  college 
described  as  ".75  per  week  for  vegetable  diet  and  .S7}/4  for  animal  once  a  day,"  has 
given  place  to  meals  planned  by  dietitians  and  served  in  beautiful  dining  halls. 

In  academic  aspects  the  colleges  have  progressed  proportionately.  The  four  graduates 
whom  the  first  president  of  Vassar  doubted  the  "propriety"  of  calling  bachelors  of 
art  have  grown  to  the  thousands  of  bachelors  of  art  and  of  science  who  in  acadamic  robes 
receive  their  degrees  each  June.  Curricula  have  been  diversified  •  from  the  half  a  dozen 
subjects  of  early  days  to  the  hundreds  of  today.  Examinations  have  become  matters  of 
course  instead  of  affairs  of  public  interest  as  when  Frances  Willard  described  the  parents, 
the  elite  of  Troy,  the  school  principals,  and  the  legislators  who  came  to  hear  the  girls 
"scan  Latin  verse,  solve  problems  in  Euclid,  go  smoothly  through  fractions,  and  read 
their  own  compositions  in  a  promiscuous  assemblage." 

In  the  midst  of  growth  and  progress  that  have  changed  woman's  education  from 
an  adventure  to  a  commonplace,  one  thing  has  remained  unchanged:  the  aim  of  higher 
education  for  woman.  In  Troy  Female  Academy,  the  purpose  was  to  secure  for  women 
"full  opportunities  of  learning  as  a  human  right  .  .  .  that  they  may  be  the  means  of 
the  greatest  possible  happiness  of  which  they  are  capable,  both  as  to  what  they  enjoy 
and  what  they  communicate."  Holyoke  phrased  its  aim  in  1836  as  to  give  women  an 
education  "similar  to  that  which  their  brothers  could  obtain  at  Harvard  and  Yale,"  and 
went  on  to  state  that  it  was  no  part  of  its  design  to  teach  young  ladies  domestic  work, 
which  is  important  but  which  it  is  not  the  part  of  the  "literary  college"  to  teach.  In 
the  words  of  Matthew  Vassar  in  1865,  ".  .  .  woman  having  received  from  her  Creator 
the  same  intellectual  constitution  as  man,  has  the  same  right  to  intellectual  culture  and 
development." 

From  its  inception,  then,  the  liberal  arts  college  for  woman  has  been  determinedly  a 
"place  of  the  mind."  No  fear  about  womanly  charm,  no  compunction  about  physical 
weakness,  no  anxiety  about  what  might  happen  to  the  puddings  and  pies  when  women 
became  scholars,  deterred  the  founders  who  pursued  the  Greek  ideal  "Knowledge  is  the 
only  virtue"  and  the  humanistic  end,  the  development  of  their  students  as  persons.    The 


2  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

1934  catalogues  of  these  colleges,  the  convocation  addresses  of  their  presidents,  the  testi- 
mony of  their  alumnae — all  convince  us  that  while  courses,  methods,  and  policies  have 
changed  and  adapted  themselves  to  changing  times — while  the  emphasis  in  one  decade 
has  been  on  the  classics,  in  another  on  the  social  sciences,  again  on  the  natural  sciences, 
and  today  increasingly  on  the  arts — the  purpose  has  remained  essentially  the  same.  Here 
we  are  not  in  the  realm  of  changing  standards. 

It  is  in  the  light  of  this  persistent  ideal  that  the  answer  to  the  question,  "What  does 
the  liberal  arts  college  expect  of  its  alumnae?"  must  be  sought.  And  that  answer  is 
important  since  it  is  agreed  that  the  success  or  failure  of  college  is  to  be  measured  by 
its  graduates  and  since  President  Aydelotte  of  Swarthmore,  speaking  at  the  Atlanta 
meeting  of  the  American  Association  of  Colleges  in  January,  said  that  the  conception 
of  the  liberal  arts  college  is  breaking  down  because  it  is  too  often  not  realized  in  its 
graduates. 

"Too  often  not  realized  in  its  graduates,"  he  said,  and  immediately  there  flashed 
through  my  mind  the  picture  of  the  alumna  who  hoped  that  her  election  to  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  would  not  be  announced  in  the  public  press  since  such  an  announcement  would 
decrease  her  popularity  at  certain  dances  to  which  she  had  been  invited,  and  the  picture 
of  another  alumna  who  after  having  heard  Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay  read  her  poetry 
immediately  classed  her  with  Eddie  Guest,  and  finally  of  the  rich  man's  son,  a  graduate 
of  Yale,  who  according  to  his  account  in  the  January  Forum  bitterly  regrets  the  money 
spent  on  his  education  since  he  cannot  now  earn  a  salary  equal  to  the  interest  on  that 
amount  and  therefore  finds  himself  without  anything  to  which  he  may  cling  "no  gods 
to  worship  .  .  .  almost  everything  in  which  we  have  been  taught  to  place  our  faith  swept 
away  .  .  .  confused  and  bewildered." 

Each  of  these  has  fallen  short  of  the  Alma  Mater's  expectations.  The  first  failed  to 
cherish  the  intellectual  attainment  that  was  hers,  wished  instead  to  assume  what  James 
Truslow  Adams  has  called  the  "mucker  pose,"  to  be  one  of  the  crowd,  not  one  of  there 
elected  to  uphold  inner  and  intangible  values.  "The  college  has  a  right  to  expect,"  says 
President  Neilson  of  Smith,  "that  its  graduates  should  figure  in  the  community  as  up- 
holders of  spiritual  and  intellectual  values."  Nor  does  this  imply,  I  should  like  to  add, 
any  lack  of  the  grace  and  charm  that  bring  popularity  at  commencement  dances. 

The  second  has  failed  in  discrimination.  Living  for  four  years  with  the  "best  that 
has  been  thought  and  said"  has  not  taught  her  to  distinguish  between  the  real  and  the 
sentimental,  the  fine  and  the  shoddy.  The  books  she  reads,  the  plays  she  sees,  the  music 
she  hears  will  be  those  acclaimed  by  the  crowd,  not  those  whose  excellence  commends 
them.  Yet,  in  the  words  of  Everett  Dean  Martin,  "If  education  is  for  anything,  it  is 
that  we  learn  to  choose  the  good." 

The  rich  man's  son  I  have  cited  because  his  lot  of  having  looked  forward  to  an  oc- 
cupation no  longer  open  to  him  has  been  the  lot  of  many  an  alumna  since    1929  and 
his  bitterness  and  disillusionment  in  the  face  of  a  tottering  world  is  exactly  the  opposite 
of  what  is  to  be  expected  of  one  who  has  experienced  the  discipline  of  the  intellectual 
life.    In  contrast  to  his  emotional  outcry,  the  college  expects  its  daughters  to  find  knowl- 
edge a  guide  in  such  a  crisis.    Do  you  remember  the  fifteenth  century  morality  play  in 
which  Everyman  is  summoned  suddenly  by  Death.    He  calls  in  vain  on  Kindred,  Fel- 
lowship, and  Good  Deeds  for  assistance,  but  in  his  despair  Knowledge  comes, 
"I  wyll  go  with  the,  and  be  thy  gyde, 
In  thy  most  nede  to  go  by  thy  syde." 
The  alumna  in  the  midst  of  the  emergencies  of  today  may  find  in  Knowledge,  by  which 
is  meant  not  an  accumulation  of  facts  but  a  way  of  approach  by  the  intellect,  a  solution 
to  her  dilemma.    I  have  known  many  who  did  this.    One  had  majored  in  English  with 
the  hope  of  teaching  it;  finding  herself  unable  to  discipline  high  school  girls  and  boys, 
she  turned  to  advertising.   Another  who  chose  kindergarten  work  as  a  vocation,  when 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  3 

the  depression  closed  kindergartens  in  her  community,  used  her  knowledge  to  make  her- 
self invaluable  in  a  book  store  for  children.  Another  baffled  by  her  own  ill-adjusted 
child  sought  in  Child  Psychology  a  solution  to  her  problem.  Such  initiative  and  adapt- 
ability college  expects  of  an  alumna  whether  her  emergency  is  in  the  home  or  in  an  oc- 
cupation. 

Even  though  she  finds  no  solution  to  her  economic  problem — as  we  must  admit  that 
she  often  will  not — the  alumna  guided  by  knowledge  will  not  cry  out  in  bewilderment 
and  confusion  as  did  the  rich  man's  son  but  will  be  fortified  by  some  understanding 
of  the  situation.  She  may  have  forgot  the  facts  of  history — the  date  of  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  the  terms  of  Lee's  surrender,  the  conditions  of  the  Versailles  treaty — but  she 
will  be  armed  by  the  perspective  of  history,  what  Professor  Torrance  in  a  recent  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  address  called  a  realization  of  historic  values.  Knowing  that  civilization  has 
marched  forward  through  the  collapse  of  one  social  order  and  the  rise  of  another,  through 
the  failure  of  one  economic  system  and  the  institution  of  another,  she  will  see  the  present 
crisis  as  no  worse  for  her  than  was  the  Civil  War  for  her  ancestors  two  generations  ago. 
Such  insight  will  give  her  the  serenity  and  courage  with  which  college  expects  its  grad- 
uates to  face  contemporary  life. 

Again,  the  alumna  guided  by  Knowledge  will  not  say  with  the  rich  man's  son  when 
the  means  for  buying  a  new  car  or  an  expensive  fur  coat  or  theatre  tickets  fail,  "All 
is  gone."  She  will  possess  pleasures  "beyond  time's  throwing."  Her  delight  in  reading, 
in  listening  to  music,  in  seeing  the  first  signs  of  spring  are  not  dependent  on  her  bank 
account.  College  expects  the  alumna  to  find  in  the  pleasures  of  the  mind  and  in  the 
response  to  beauty  resources  against  the  vicissitudes  of  life. 

In  short,  the  college  expects  its  alumnae  in  the  contemporary  world  to  be  the  kind 
of  persons  Charles  W.  Eliot  described  in  an  essay  which  most  of  you  read  in  your 
Freshman  year  of  college,  women  of  "quick  perceptions,  broad  sympathies,  and  wide 
affinities;  responsive  but  independent;  self-reliant,  but  deferential;  loving  truth  and 
candor,  but  also  moderation  and  proportion;  courageous  but  gentle;  not  finished  but 
perfecting." 

While  from  the  very  beginning  the  enrichment  of  personality  has  been  the  main 
objective  of  the  woman's  college,  this  aim  has  never  been  without  its  social  implications. 
Frances  Willard  stated  in  1819  that  woman  was  to  be  educated  that  she  might  be  "of 
the  greatest  possible  use."  Mary  Lyon  desired  in  1836  to  "present  the  church  and  the 
world,  as  efficient  Christian  workers,  a  body  of  thoroughly  educated  and  as  truly  con- 
secrated, young  women."  Recently  a  college  president  has  said  that  "the  business  of  a 
college  is  to  develop  personalities  that  are  capable  of  large  participation  in  life  and  of 
large  contribution  to  life."  But  more  and  more  we  are  realizing  that  the  present  crisis 
is  not  a  crisis  of  machines  but  a  crisis  of  character.  Woman's  activity  may  be  in  pol- 
itics, in  social  welfare,  in  literature,  or  in  the  home,  but  whatever  form  that  activity 
takes,  its  success  will  be  measured  by  her  ability  to  face  a  changing  world  with  the 
insight  and  integrity  that  spring  from  knowledge  and  the  love  of  truth.  I  can  do  no 
better  in  concluding  than  quote  to  you  the  lines  written  by  Chaucer  more  than  five 
hundred  years  ago: 

"Tempest  thee  noght  al  croked  to  redresse, 
In  trust  of  hir  that  turneth  as  a  bal; 
Gret  reste  stant  in  litel  besinesse, 
And  eek  be  war  to  sporne  ageyn  an  al; 
Stryve  noght,  as  doth  the  crokke  with  the  wal. 
Daunte  thyself,   that  dauntest  otheres  dede; 
And  trouthe  shal  delivre,  hit  is  no  drede." 

Footnote:  My  statements  about  the  early  history  of  woman's  colleges  are  based 
on  Before  Vassar  Opened,  by  J.  M.  Taylor;  Pioneers  of  Woman's  Education,  edited  by 
Willystine  Goodsell,  and  numerous  histories  of  Vassar,  Wellesley,  and  Smith. 


CHANGING  STANDARDS  OF  MODERN  GOVERNMENTS 

Dr.  Philip  Davidson 

Professor  of  History  at  Agnes  Scott  College 

(Author's  Note:    This  is  simply  a  rough  summary,  greatly  abbreviated,  of  the  original 

talk  delivered  on  Friday  of  Alumnae  Week-End. ) 

"Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient  confidence  in  the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people? 
Is  there  any  better  of  equal  hope  in  the  world?"  These  words  from  Lincoln's  first 
Inaugural  are  within  the  memory  of  nearly  two  million  living  Americans,  yet  within 
three  short  generations  they  are  boldly  and  defiantly  challenged.  Those  of  the  old 
order  cry,  "If  man  is  not  fitted  to  govern  himself,  is  he  then  fitted  to  be  charged  with 
the  government  of  others,  or  do  we  have  angels  in  the  form  of  men  to  govern  us?  Let 
history  answer  the  question."  But  they  are  not  heeded,  and  those  reared  in  the  land 
of  liberty  and  justice  for  all  see  strange,  monstrous  tyrannies  arising,  which  know 
neither  liberty  nor  justice.  Do  these  new  governments  mean  the  end  of  the  democratic 
ideal? 

We  can  best  understand  their  meaning  as  we  see  the  trend  of  the  last  five  hundred 
years  in  the  history  of  man's  relations  to  government  and  society. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  lasting  well  down  into  the  eighteenth, 
there  existed  in  Europe  the  institution  of  the  powerful,  highly  centralized  state,  oper- 
ated by  and  in  the  interests  of  a  close  oligarchy  of  large  merchants  and  land  owners. 
The  state  had  developed  out  of  the  crude  materials  of  feudalism,  a  system  which  had 
resisted  the  centralizing  influences  of  the  young  national  governments.  It  was  neces- 
sary, therefore,  for  the  state  to  crush  ruthlessly  the  rights  of  the  old  feudal  heirarchy; 
individual  rights  soon  failed  to  exist  and  the  system  was  supported  by  a  complete  philos- 
ophy of  society  and  government.  "In  every  state  there  must  be  a  supreme  authority 
to  which  all  are  subject.  The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God.  Resist  them  at  the 
peril  of  thy  soul."  Treason  to  the  state  became  the  greatest  conceivable  crime,  and 
raison  d'etat  an  all-sufficient  excuse.  But  inevitably  there  arose  serious  protests  against 
this  restrictive  system  operated  in  the  interest  of  so  few,  and  underneath  the  controlling 
minority  there  grew  up  a  rebellious  majority,  made  up  of  the  middle  class,  who  de- 
manded a  share  in  the  government.  So  persistent  and  so  threatening  did  the  demand 
become,  that  those  in  control  attempted  to  stave  off  the  impending  revolution  by  gifts 
or  concessions  to  the  middle  class,  gifts  in  the  form  of  trade  legislation,  commercial 
privileges,  and  so  on.  This  process  has  been  called  paternalism.  But  the  middle  class  was 
not  to  be  satisfied  with  part  measures,  and  in  a  series  of  revolutions  in  the  late  eigh- 
teenth century,  notably  in  France,  the  middle  class  won  a  decisive  victory,  ushering  in 
the  second  period  of  the  trend  we  are  trying  to  establish. 

This  period  lasted  roughly  from  1789  to  the  last  war,  and  its  characteristics,  es- 
pecially in  their  last  aspects  from  1900  to  1929,  are  the  ones  with  which  we  are  familiar. 
Essentially  every  phase  of  life  was  dominated  by  middle  class  ideology — middle  class 
institutions,  middle  class  religion,  middle  class  virtues,  middle,  class  literature.  All  was 
based  essentially  upon  the  theory  that  man  is  inherently  good,  and  that  this  inherently 
good  man,  pursuing  his  own  advantage  without  let  or  hindrance,  can  do  no  wrong,  and 
that  if  all  these  inherently  good  men  are  pursuing  their  advantage  without  doing  wrong 
all  will  be  benefited — thus  is  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  achieved.  Bol- 
stered by  the  eighteenth  century  philosophy  of  government  and  society  and  the  vista 
of  infinite  progress  opened  by  science,  the  idealogy  was  accepted  as  ultimate  truth,  and 
the  middle  class  seemed  permanently  enthroned.  But  the  rights  of  man  soon  destroyed 
the  rights  of  society,  just  as  the  rights  of  government  in  the  previous  period  had 
destroyed  the  rights  of  man.  Liberty  became  license,  the  license  of  the  economically 
powerful  to  exploit  the  weaker,  to  lay  waste  the  resources  of  the  land,  and  to  corrupt 
every  phase  of  life  in  their  own  interests.    And  just  as  before,  underneath  this  vested 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  S 

class  there  arose  the  voice  of  dissent,  the  threatened  rebellion  of  the  oppressed — labor. 
And  as  before,  those  in  control  attempted  to  stave  off  the  impending  revolution  by 
paternalism,  this  time  by  gifts  to  labor  in  the  form  of  labor  legislation,  employers 
liability,  old  age  pensions,  unemployment  insurance,  and  similar  laws.  As  these  forces 
were  working  themselves  out,  somewhat  normally,  the  World  War  came  and  delivered 
the  coup  de  grace  to  the  ruling  middle  class.  The  war  did  not  cause  the  economic  col- 
lapse of  capitalism,  nor  did  it  cause  the  sudden  rise  of  labor  to  a  threatening  position — 
it  simply  accelerated  movements  well  under  way  before  the  war. 

If  I  have  read  aright  the  trend  of  the  last  five  hundred  years,  the  new  governments 
of  Italy,  Germany,  Russia,  and  the  New  Deal  in  the  United  States,  result  from  the 
upward  drive  of  labor  against  the  vested  middle  class  and  the  economic  collapse  of  the 
middle  class  capitalistic  system,  or  in  larger  terms,  from  the  attempt  of  society  to  recover 
the  rights  taken  from  it  by  unbridled  individualism.  In  a  sense,  the  governments  of 
Italy,  Germany,  and  the  United  States  are  counter-revolutionary,  that  is,  they  represent 
efforts  to  prevent  a  labor  revolution,  while  the  government  of  Russia  is  a  revolutionary 
labor  government.  From  a  broader  point  of  view,  however,  the  so-called  counter- 
revolutionary governments  are  more  than  mere  governments  of  opposition,  essentially 
conservative  in  character,  for  they  have  a  constructive  program  to  offer  in  the  crisis,  a 
program  which  in  some  instances  has  much  more  than  the  interests  of  one  class  in  view. 
Let  us  examine  the  standards  or  ideals  of  these  new  governments  and  the  agencies  they 
have  set  up. 

There  are  striking  similarities  among  these  governments  in  spite  of  obvious  diversi- 
ties. The  fundamental  principle  behind  them  all,  for  example,  is  the  authoritarian  or 
totalitarian  state,  even  though  in  the  Marxian  system,  the  theoretical  basis  of  Russian 
communism,  the  ideal  is  the  stateless  order.  The  state  in  the  new  school  of  thought  is 
more  than  a  mere  political  institution,  it  is  a  mystical  entity  composed  of  the  mass  of 
the  people  who  make  it  up,  and  is  superior  to  any  individual  within  the  group.  The 
supremacy  of  the  state,  to  which  all  are  subject,  is  the  dominant  ideal  of  Fascism,  Nazi- 
ism,  and,  as  I  have  indicated,  in  actuality  that  of  Communism.  The  state,  therefore, 
is  concerned  with  the  welfare  of  society  as  a  whole  as  opposed  to  the  private  interests 
of  any  one  individual  or  group  within  the  state,  and  no  one  has  the  right  to  injure 
society  or  the  state.  Here  then  is  the  culmination  of  the  third  step  of  the  major  trend 
of  political  history  since  1500:  just  as  government  usurped  the  rights  of  individuals,  so 
individuals  usurped  the  rights  of  society,  and  now  society,  through  the  instrument  of 
the  supreme  state,  is  attempting  to  recover  the  rights  taken  from  it  by  individuals. 

To  put  into  actual  effect  the  ideal  of  the  supreme  state  operated  in  the  interests  of 
society  as  a  whole,  these  governments  have  evolved  certain  agencies,  which  again  show 
striking  similarities  the  one  to  the  other.  The  major  political  institution  is  the  party — 
the  Communist  party  in  Russia,  the  Fascist  party  in  Italy,  the  Nazi  party  in  Germany, 
and  perhaps  the  Democratic  party  in  the  United  States.  So  vital  in  the  scheme  of 
things  is  the  party  that  it  has  become  identified  with  the  state,  and  for  all  purposes  of 
legislation  and  determination  of  policy  it  is  the  state.  In  point  of  fact,  the  ideal  of 
the  party  leaders  is  that  the  party  shall  become  coterminous  with  the  state.  The  party, 
then,  controls  every  phase  of  life,  cultural,  religious,  social,  and  economic,  within  the 
nation.  It  is  the  chief  instrument  of  the  authoritarian  state.  For  our  purposes  it  will 
be  sufficient  to  describe  only  its  control  of  the  economic  activities  of  the  nation.  In  Italy 
the  method  applied  to  economic  problems,  especially  those  relating  to  industry,  is  called 
the  corporate  system.  Each  industry,  after  a  conference  of  employees,  employers,  and 
capitalists,  draws  up  an  agreement  fixing  wages,  hours  of  labor,  and  the  price  of  the 
finished  product.  This  agreement  is  then  approved  by  the  government  and  is  enforced 
by  both  the  industry  and  the  state.  If  no  agreement  can  be  reached,  the  state  may  set 
the  forms  of  the  contract.    No  strikes,  boycotts,  lockouts,  or  other  forms  of  industrial 


6  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

disturbances  are  allowed,  as  under  the  guiding  principle  of  the  Fascist  state,  no  one 
group  has  the  right  to  disturb  the  welfare  of  the  nation.  In  Germany  very  much  the 
same  system  is  used,  and  here  in  the  United  States  the  code  system  so  closely  resembles 
the  corporate  method  of  Italy  that  I  have  practically  described  it  above.  In  these  coun- 
tries there  is  the  obvious  attempt  to  salvage  the  best  of  the  old  economic  system  and 
to  preserve  as  far  as  possible  private  initiative.  In  Russia  a  central  economic  planning 
board  regulates  closely  both  production  and  consumption.  Here  as  in  every  other  field 
there  is  a  common  approach  to  common  problems,  because  behind  the  particular  insti- 
tution there  is  in  reality  a  common  purpose. 

Here  is  the  trend;  where  will  it  lead  us?  Clearly  to  one  of  two  major  catastrophes. 
The  glorification  of  the  national  state  in  the  German  and  Italian  systems,  by  cutting 
across  class  lines  and  along  national  lines,  will  lead  inevitably  to  serious  if  not  fatal 
national  conflicts.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Russian  ideal  predominates  and  expands, 
its  ideal  of  the  classless,  stateless  world,  by  cutting  across  national  lines  and  along  class 
lines,  will  lead  equally  inevitably  to  even  more  bitter  class  wars.  Which  alternative  will 
eventuate,  and  when,  depends  upon  so  many  delicately  adjusted  and  complicated  factors 
that  not  even  the  vaguest  answer  is  possible;  but  unless  we  can  combat  these  major 
forces  one  or  the  other  will  surely  come,  and  that  all  too  soon. 

To  avert  the  impending  crisis  there  are  two,  and  only  two,  remedies  we  can  apply. 
The  first  if  applied  in  time  will  avert  the  threatening  national  conflicts,  and  consists 
in  strengthening  immediately  existing  international  organizations  for  the  settlement  of 
disputes — the  League  of  Nations,  the  Permanent  Court  of  International  Justice,  and 
similar  institutions.  The  second  remedy,  far  less  tangible  but  not  less  important,  may 
solve  the  problem  of  the  class  war.  It  consists  in  judging  all  our  domestic  policies  by 
the  one  standard  of  the  welfare  of  society  as  a  whole;  we  must  realize  that  the  old 
free  days  are  gone,  and  that  we  must  hereafter  think  in  terms  of  the  rights  of  society 
and  the  duties  of  individuals.  We  must  subordinate  ourselves  and  our  individual  in- 
terests to  the  larger  interests  of  the  whole  group,  so  that  at  the  least,  government  for 
the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


IN  MEMORIAM 

Miss  Jennie  Smith,  secretary  to  the  President  of  Agnes  Scott  College 
for  twenty-five  years,  died  at  an  Atlanta  hospital  on  Saturday,  March 
16.  In  appreciation  to  her  untiring  service  under  Dr.  F.  H.  Gaines 
and  Dr.  J.  R.  McCain,  which  ended  with  her  illness  in  the  1931-1932 
session,  in  this  space  in  our  Alumnae  Quarterly  dedicated. 


CURRENT  THINKING  AMONG  ECONOMISTS 

Dr.  Mercer  Evans 
Associate  Professor  of  Economics  at  Emory  University 

Since  the  coming  of  the  depression,  economic  thinking  has  become  an  important  part 
of  the  life  of  every  American  citizen.  During  the  past  five  years  nearly  everyone  has 
had  his  attention  focussed  upon  economic  problems.  Nearly  everyone  has  suffered  in 
one  way  or  another  from  the  general  economic  condition,  and  has,  therefore,  begun  to 
wonder  what  is  the  trouble  with  the  economic  system;  has  tried  to  learn  something  about 
it,  how  it  ordinarily  functions,  and  what  is  causing  it  to  function  so  poorly. 

Before  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  the  country  was  over-run  with  economists,  who 
had  just  been  discovered  by  the  public,  or  who  had  just  discovered  themselves  and  pro- 
ceeded to  let  the  public  know  of  their  existence.  In  1932,  for  example,  nearly  every  busi- 
ness man,  every  banker,  every  manufacturer,  every  journalist,  every  newspaperman, 
broadly  speaking,  was  offering  himself  as  an  economist,  offering  an  explanation  of  the 
economic  depression,  of  the  stock  market  debacle,  or  of  international  trade  conditions, 
and  the  bewildered  public  was  hanging  upon  the  words  of  anyone  who  was  denominated, 
or  who  denominated  himself,  an  economist.  I  recall  that  at  that  time  some  of  us  were 
not  only  interested,  but  amused,  at  the  rapid  multiplication  of  the  tribe,  and  that 
we  were  no  little  concerned  over  the  widening  inclusiveness  of  the  term. 

In  that  year  I  remember  that  I  undertook  to  speak  before  a  local  woman's  club  on 
the  topic,  "Economists  and  Economists,"  for  the  purpose  of  differentiating  among  the 
varieties  of  the  tribe.  I  tried  to  point  out  the  difference  between  the  trained  students 
of  economic  institutions  and  forces,  and  the  naive  amateurs  who  were  rushing  into  print. 
I  call  them  naive  amateurs,  because  most  of  them  had  made  no  study  of  the  history  of 
our  economic  institutions,  had  no  historical  perspective,  and  knew  little  or  nothing  and 
cared  less,  about  what  had  been  thought,  tried,  or  discovered  during  past  centuries. 
They  would  segregate  one  minor  or  major  force,  inadequately  analyze  it,  hit  upon  some 
little  understood  panacea,  and  proclaim  a  remedy  for  all  our  economic  maladies. 

When  Mr.  Roosevelt  became  President,  he  called  upon  several  professional,  trained 
economists  for  advice  and  assistance.  At  once  they  received  a  recognition  which  set 
them  apart  from  the  amateurs  of  the  press  and  the  weekly  journals.  But  confusion 
was  only  added  to  confusion  as  these  trained  experts  offered  conflicting  interpretations, 
and  more  particularly,  conflicting  proposals  and  opinions  concerning  proposals  for  the 
way  out  of  the  depression. 

Eventually  the  confusion  became  so  great,  the  remedies  tried  so  diverse,  the  conse- 
quences so  embarrassing,  that  the  prestige  of  the  profession  began  rapidly  to  diminish. 
So  unpopular  is  it  to  be  an  "economist"  just  now,  that  the  newspapermen  and  journalists, 
the  business  men  and  public  relations  representatives  of  private  corporations  have  dropped 
the  title.  Even  the  trained  professional  students  of  the  field  are  now  seeking  refuge  from 
the  public  gaze. 

This  morning,  I  want  to  restrict  my  discussion  to  an  effort  to  clear  up  the  confusion 
that  has  developed  in  the  layman's  mind  from  the  paradoxical  contradictions  which 
appear  in  those  views  of  economists  still  reaching  the  public  press. 

In  the  first  place,  I  want  to  separate  the  professional  clan  from  the  amateurs.  A 
professional  economist,  as  I  suggested  above,  is  one  who  has  carefully  studied  the  history 
and  development  of  economic  institutions  since  the  beginning  of  modern  economic  life, 
— since,  at  least,  say,  the  fourteenth  century.  A  genuine  economist  is  acquainted,  for 
example,  with  the  origin  of  money.  He  knows  that  money  originated  simply  as  a 
convenient  commodity  which  could  be  used  as  a  measure  of  value  for  varying  kinds  of 
goods.  It  had  no  magic  connected  with  it.  It  had  no  peculiar  relationship  to  price  levels. 
It  involved  no  banks,  for  there  were  no  banks.  It  had  no  connection  with  business 
cycles  and  economic  depressions,  for  business  cycles  did  not  exist  and  economic  depres- 


8  The     Agnes     Scot  t     Alumnae     Quarterly 

sions  were  consequences  solely  of  wars,  drouths,  floods,  and  other  natural  phenomena. 
The  trained  economist  knows  this:  and  is  acquainted  with  the  slow  development  of  a 
state  coined  money,  of  a  banking  system  (out  of  the  simple  practices  of  the  goldsmith), 
of  fiduciary  money,  of  the  extension  of  credit,  of  bank  currency  and  bank  deposit  cur- 
rency in  the  form  of  deposits  against  which  checks  can  be  written.  He  knows  of  the 
gradual  development  of  money  as  an  economic  force  in  itself,  affecting  price  levels,  affect- 
ing the  development  of  capitalistic  enterprises,  encouraging  the  development  of  the 
corporate  form  of  business  organization,  inducing  the  development  of  a  wage  system  of 
impersonal  labor  relationships,  and  of  widespread  and  impersonal  markets. 

Similarly,  as  the  genuine  economist  is  aware  of  the  nature  of  money  as  an  institution, 
its  significance,  its  force  in  the  economic  organization,  he  is  acquainted  with  the  develop- 
ment and  nature  of  banking,  with  the  development,  expansion,  contraction,  and  modi- 
fication of  property  rights.  He  is  acquainted  with  the  historical  position  of  people  as 
workers:  as  wage  laborers,  savers,  investors,  capitalists,  and  entrepreneurs.  He  is  ac- 
quainted with  the  development  of  international  trade,  of  the  international  money  market, 
of  the  forces  affecting  relative  prices  in  the  international  goods  market;  and  so  on. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  various  groups  of  amateurs.  Most  of  them  have  not 
studied  economic  history,  most  of  them  do  not  have  a  perspective  which  gives  a  realistic 
understanding  of  the  nature  and  significance  of  current  institutions.  Most  of  them  are 
acquainted  only  with  what  is  in  the  modern  world,  not  with  how  it  came  into  being. 
Most  of  them  do  not  comprehend  the  complicated  interrelationships  of  forces.  Most 
of  them  are  acquainted  with  and  see  only  minute  segments  of  our  whole  economic  life. 
They  understand  the  internal  workings  of  the  institutions  with  which  they  are  con- 
nected: with  these  they  are  much  better  acquainted  than  the  professional  economist. 
They  know  the  internal  organization  of  their  enterprises,  they  know  the  business  prac- 
tices, and  they  see  some  of  the  impacts  of  other  institutions  upon  their  own  activities. 
But  understanding  the  whole,  they  do  not  and  cannot.  Nor  can  they  be  expected  to: 
they  have  been  compelled  to  concentrate  their  attention  upon  the  mechanics  of  their 
own  entereprises,  their  noses  have  been  kept  to  their  own  grindstones,  they  have  not 
had  the  time  nor  the  opportunity  to  see  the  whole  economic  system.  They  are  like 
wood-cutters:  they  cannot  see  the  forests  for  the  trees,  and  it  is  not  their  business  to 
see  the  forests.  That  is  for  other  people,  who  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  climb  the 
mountains,  soar  in  aeroplanes,  and  study  the  whole  topography  from  a  disinterested 
distance. 

To  make  clear  the  distinction,  perhaps  I  should  offer  a  few  examples: 

( 1 )  There  is  the  business  man  who  is  well  acquainted  with  his  business,  from  the 
managerial  and  profit-making  point  of  view.  Of  the  millions  of  economic  cells  in  the 
world,  he  is  well  acquainted  with  his  own,  and,  perhaps,  with  a  few  others  like  his. 
He  cannot  see  all  of  the  cells  because  he  is  too  busy,  and  it  is  not  his  business  to  try 
to  see  them  all.  He  cannot  even  see  the  whole  of  his  own  cell.  Each  cell  is  many- 
sided:  there  is  the  financial  side,  the  market  side,  the  labor  side,  etc.  Furthermore,  each 
side  of  the  cell  has  at  least  two  faces,  an  inside  and  an  outside.  The  business  man, 
being  on  the  inside  of  a  cell — a  part  of  one  of  its  sides,  cannot  even  see  both  faces 
of  the  various  sides  of  his  own  cell;  and  especially  is  it  difficult  for  him  to  see  all 
of  the  forces  bearing  upon  these  sides.  Then,  too,  the  cells  are  continuously  changing, 
evolving  new  shapes,  sizes,  relative  proportions,  thicknesses  and  colors.  Only  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  historical  development  of  cells  in  general  can  give  him  a  compre- 
hension of  what  might  be  taking  place.     This  he  normally  does  not  have. 

(2)  There  are  the  newspaper  writers — untrained  reporters,  editors,  financial  writers, 
statistical  summarizers,  etc.  These  men,  at  most,  have  tried  to  study  only  one  phase 
of  the  complicated  structure  of  the  economic  organism.     Almost  never  have  they  studied 


The     Agnes     Scott"  Alumnae     Quarterly 9 

the  historial  evolution  of  any  of  its  parts.  Most  of  them  have  specialized  on  the  financial 
sides  of  the  various  cells.  Some  have  specialized  on  the  market  sides.  Almost  none 
has  studied  the  labor  sides. 

Others,  instead  of  studying  certain  sides  of  many  kinds  of  cells,  have  concentrated 
on  certain  groups  of  cells — as  agriculture,  banking,  steel  manufacturing,  international 
trade,  or  stock  markets. 

Mentioning  names,  perhaps  B.  C.  Forbes,  Merle  Rukeyser  and  Roger  Babson  are  out- 
standing examples  of  this  category.  The  trade  and  financial  journals  also  offer  innumer- 
able examples  of  specialized  observers.  Experts  of  a  sort,  undoubtedly  these  are,  but 
full-rounded  economists — many  would  doubt. 

(3)  A  special  group,  perhaps  belonging  more  in  this  classification  than  with  the 
professional  economists,  is  composed  of  the  economists  employed  by  private  corporations 
to  help  represent  their  interests  to  the  outside  world.  Some  of  these  men  are  almost 
imposters;  others  are  thoroughly  trained  men  who,  however,  either  because  of  the  con- 
centration of  their  interests,  or  because  they  are  employed  to  represent  limited  points 
of  view,  are  subject  to  challenge  as  genuine  disinterested  economists. 

As  an  example  of  the  imposters,  I  recall  one  man  who  was  a  professor  of  engineering 
in  a  state  university.  Because  he  had  a  facile  tongue,  he  was  hired  by  a  private  corpora- 
tion as  a  public  relations  man.  Suddenly,  a  few  years  ago,  he  metamorphosed  into  a 
consulting  economist,  and  his  articles  on  public  economic  questions  were  widely  carried 
by  the  American  press.  So  far  as  I  could  tell,  he  was  entirely  lacking  in  any  of  the 
prerequisites  of  a  genuine  economist. 

Of  the  other  group,  well  trained  but  privately  hired,  there  are  not  so  many.  It  is 
probably  not  fair  to  charge  them  with  letting  their  employments  color  their  points  of 
view;  but  it  is  fair  to  raise  a  question  as  to  their  ability  to  retain  a  purely  disinterested 
position  on  matters  of  public  policy.  Examples  of  this  category  might  include  such 
highly  competent  men  as  B.  M.  Anderson  of  the  Chase  National  Bank  and  Colonel 
L.  P.  Ayres  of  the  Cleveland  Trust  Company. 

Now  for  the  "saints"  of  the  profession:  the  professorial  economists  and  research  and 
consulting  economists  of  our  public  and  governmental  bodies.  For  the  most  part,  these 
men  are  well-trained  in  historical  and  widespread  current  perspective.  For  the  most 
part,  also,  they  are  supposed  to  be  free  from  private  pecuniary  bias.  They  have  no 
private  masters  to  serve,  no  special  interests  to  protect  or  advance. 

But  economists  are  supposed  to  be  scientists.  And  scientists  are  supposed  to  yield 
but  one  body  of  phenomena.  If  these  men  be  good  men,  how  then  can  they  yield  such 
diverse  interpretations  and  diverse  proposals  and  variegated  prophecies? 

First,  let  me  point  out  that  economists  as  scientists  merely  observe  and  measure  and 
interpret  what  has  happened  or  what  is  happening.  They  are  not  prophetic,  they  are 
not  therapeutic.  However,  as  an  observing  scientist  in  the  realms  of  physics  or  chemistry 
can  point  out  anticipated  results  from  given  actions,  so  the  good  economist  should  be 
able  to  prophesy  consequences  of  economic  actions.  Also,  as  the  good  physiologist, 
studying  what  is  happening  in  the  blood  stream,  may  undertake  to  suggest  remedies  for 
conditions  discovered  in  the  hospital,  so  the  economist  might  presume  to  prescribe  for 
economic  ills. 

But  in  any  given  set  of  circumstances,  any  scientist  may  make  erratic  prophecies. 
He  may  overlook  the  presence  of  some  catalytic  agent  previously  unnoted;  he  may 
discover  the  presence  of  some  element  previously  unmeasured;  he  may  ignore  some 
impurity  that  had  not  been  pointed  out  to  him.  Similarly,  the  therapeutists  overlook 
some  unmeasured  factor,  or  neglect  some  bit  of  knowledge  previously  known  to  others 
but  underestimated  by  themselves.  As  these  conditions  may  prevail  among  the  natural 
scientists,  so  they  may  prevail  among  the  "saints"  of  the  economic  profession. 


10  The     Agnes     Scott    Alumnae     Quarterly 

For  the  most  part,  the  differences  among  the  economists  on  matters  of  public  policy 
today  are  due  not  to  fundamental  difficulties  in  their  science,  but  rather  to  differences 
in  their  assumptions  of  given  fact,  or  to  differences  in  emphasis  on  economic  phenomena, 
or  to  differences  in  conclusions  as  to  what  is  most  desirable  for  the  economic  organism. 
This  is  analogous  to  situations  that  may  exist  among  physicians:  there  may  be  differences 
in  their  understanding  of  the  history  of  a  case,  or  differences  in  emphasis  given,  for 
example,  to  a  sinus  infection  or  to  a  heart  condition,  or  differences  in  conclusions  as  to 
what  would  be  most  desirable  for  the  patient — a  chronic  limp  due  to  a  foot  condition, 
or  an  amputation  resulting  in  an  artificial  limb. 

In  general,  at  the  present  time,  I  think,  genuine  economists  might  be,  in  a  broad 
way,  classified  into  three  groups.  Like  all  classifications,  this  one  must  not  be  taken  too 
seriously,  and  is,  of  course,  subject  to  modification. 

( 1 )  There  are  the  laissez-fairist  economists,  men  who  have  accepted  a  tradition  of 
the  overwhelming  significance  of  supply  and  demand  factors  in  determining  the  trend  of 
economic  events.  For  the  most  part,  they  have  a  heavy  reliance  upon  such  assumptions 
as  the  existence  of  complete,  omniscient,  atomistic,  free  competition;  laissez-fairism  in 
government,  the  absence  of  social  controls,  the  exclusive  pecuniary  selfishness  of  human 
nature,  the  inevitability  and  indubitable  superiority  (in  terms  of  results)  of  the  pecuniary 
profit  motive;  the  going  set  of  economic  forms — of  corporations,  wage  systems,  private 
banks,  and  competitive  markets;  and  the  going  set  of  prdperty  rights.  They  assume 
a  freedom  of  all  individuals  to  enter  into  all  activities,  to  respond  to  all  pecuniary  stimuli, 
in  equal  measure. 

These  men  are  usually  referred  to  as  orthodox  economists.  The  experiments  of  the 
New  Deal  are  entirely  foreign  to  them.  They  cannot  understand  them;  they  can  make 
no  sense  out  of  them.  Governmental  control  or  intervention  has  no  place  in  their 
system.  It  is,  therefore,  idiotic;  it  can  achieve  no  good;  it  can  only  upset  the  inevitable 
working  of  what  they  consider  to  be  "natural"  economic  laws.  In  summary,  the  New 
Deal  experiments  can  only  be  calamitous,  can  only  lead  to  their  own  breakdown  and 
to  economic  chaos  for  the  country. 

Governmental  price  and  wage-fixing,  among  some  of  them  even  governmental  regula- 
tion of  woman  and  child  labor  or  of  hours  of  work  in  general,  constitutes  a  violation  of 
"laissez-fairism,"  of  free  competition,  of  the  natural  and  normal  flow  of  the  factors 
of  production.  Limitations  on  output,  regulatory  action  to  affect  the  issuance  of  money 
and  bank  credit,  or  to  affect  domestic  or  international  price  levels  in  general,  is  of  a 
similar  nature.  Unionism,  control  of  industrial  relations,  social  insurance,  and  relief — 
to  the  unemployed,  to  embarrassed  home-owners,  to  overly  indebted  business  concerns, 
is  of  the  same  character. 

(2)  A  special  category  of  this  school  of  thought  is  composed  of  what  are  known 
as  the  monetary  economists.  These  students  have  concentrated  their  studies  on  the 
private  banking  systems,  gold  money  systems,  and  international  exchanges,  as  they  existed 
prior  to  1933:  credit  issuance  institutions  based  on  small  gold  reserves,  free  gold  exchange 
against  money,  free  international  flow  of  gold  to  cover  international  trade  balances. 

In  general,  these  men  hold,  with  their  colleagues,  a  general  distrust  of  domestic  busi- 
ness regulation.  They  are  most  aroused,  however,  over  laws  changing  the  general  nature  of 
the  money  and  banking  systems,  and  they,  almost  literally,  howl  their  contempt  for  the 
monetary  and  banking  measures  of  the  New  Deal  Administration.  They  can  see  no 
sense  in  any  banking  system  not  based  on,  and  operated  solely  in  relation  to,  a  gold  reserve. 
They  cannot  envisage  a  money  system  not  based  on  gold.  Money,  they  hold,  can  have 
no  value,  or,  at  any  rate,  no  stable  value,  save  as  the  bullion  backing  has  value,  and 
as  the  money  is  freely  redeemable  in  bullion. 

There  is  a  "liberal"  fringe  among  these  two  groups  who,  while  holding  to  these 
ideas,  in  general,  are  willing  to  admit  that,  perhaps,  all  of  their  assumptions  concerning 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly      11 


the  existence  of  free  competition,  omniscient,  enlightened  self-interest,  etc.,  are  not  true 
— do  not  actually  work  out  in  practice.  To  the  extent  that  this  is  admitted,  they  are 
willing  to  allow  sufficient  governmental  intervention  to  effect  the  approximate  results 
of  such  conditions  if  they  did  exist.  They  "might  allow  limited  regulation  of  hours  of 
work,  or  child  and  woman  labor,  perhaps  of  minimum  wages,  perhaps  of  banking  prac- 
tices. In  general,  however,  they  view  with  alarm  any  widespread  efforts  at  social  control 
of  the  economic  system  or  attempts  to  change  market  or  banking  practices  or  the 
monetary  system. 

How  would  these  economists  treat  the  depression?  Most  of  them  would  just  leave 
it  alone.  As  the  economic  system  is  supposed  to  be  "natural,"  they  would  leave  the  cure 
of  its  maladies  to  "nature."  The  government  should  have  done  nothing.  The  deflation 
of  the  price  system  should  have  been  allowed  to  run  its  natural  course.  Prices  should 
have  fallen  further,  wages  should  have  been  cut  more  drastically.  The  weaker  banks 
and  business  concerns,  the  overcapitalized  railroads  and  other  public  utilities,  the  mort- 
gaged farmers  and  home-owners,  should  have  been  weeded  out  by  the  inexorable  process 
of  bankruptcy.  The  gold  standard  at  23.22  grains  to  the  dollar  should  never  have 
been  tampered  with.  If,  in  the  course  of  time,  the  gold  drain  should  have  depleted 
the  treasury  funds  so  that  it  could  not  effect  redemption — that  would  have  been  prefer- 
able to  a  voluntary  departure  from  the  gold  standard. 

Eventually,  they  feel,  deflation  would  have  reached  rock-bottom;  prices,  wages, 
capital  values  and  capital  charges  would  have  fallen  sufficiently  low,  that  the  processes 
of  recovery  would  have  developed  of  their  own  accord. 

The  liberals  of  the  group  would  have  allowed  some  interference,  primarily  for  the 
purpose  of  reestablishing  or  preserving  the  forces  of  free  competition  in  the  markets  and 
in  the  banking  systems.  They  would  have  approved  the  securities  acts,  the  new  food  and 
drug  bill,  the  Wagner  labor  bill,  the  banking  act,  the  attack  on  holding  companies,  and 
many  "fair  practices"  provisions  of  the  codes.  They  would  have  advocated  reinforce- 
ment of  the  anti-trust  laws,  and  vast  extension  of  the  power  of  the  Federal  Trade  Com- 
mission. Most  of  them  would  have  had  no  objection  to  the  establishment  of  the  TVA 
or  CCC,  and  would  have  approved  the  work  of  the  National  Resources  Board  and  the 
Mississippi  Valley  Commission.  But  for  the  AAA  and  the  monopolistic  tendencies  of 
the  NRA  they  would  have  had  no  use. 

(3)  The  remaining  groups  of  economists  are  generally  referred  to  as  "institution- 
alists."     These  men  look  around  them  and  behold,  at  least  to  their  own  conviction: 

That  full,  free  competition  among  the  economic  factors  really  does  not  exist. 

That  such  competition  as  does  exist  is  not  omniscient — that  all  of  us  are  not  intelli- 
gent, enlightened  economic  men,  that  most  of  us  respond  to  at  least  some  incentives  other 
than  that  of  private  pecuniary  profit. 

That  the  value  of  money  is  due  primarily  to  its  general  acceptability,  rather  than  to 
its  bullion  exchange  ratio,  and  is  primarily  a  consequence  of  its  quantity  in  proportion 
to  the  amount  of  trading  in  which  it  is  to  be  used. 

That  fluctuations  in  the  general  price  level,  with  their  terribly  upsetting  effects  on 
debt  relationships,  business  activity,  etc.,  are  subject  to  regulation,  in  part,  at  least, 
through  control  of  the  quantity  of  money  in  circulation. 

That  bank  credit  is  really  a  form  of  money,  and  that  the  private  banks,  uncon- 
trolled in  the  expansion  and  contraction  of  credit,  do  actually  upset  the  economic  system 
because  of  their  unplanned  and  uncoordinated  credit  extending  activities. 

That  private  property  rights  are  really  merely  traditional — have  developed  by  acci- 
dent to  their  present  pattern,  are  not  natural  or  inalienable;  are  really  governmental 
creations;  have,  in  the  past,  grown,  dwindled,  been  modified,  etc.     Wherefore,  if  public 


12  The     Agnes     Scot  t    Alumnae     Quarterly 

policy  demands  further  modification  of  them,  there  is  no  fundamental  reason  why  they 
should  be  maintained  in  status  quo  ante. 

That  "naturalism"  is  only  one  means  of  regulating  the  flow  of  the  forces  of  produc- 
tion and  of  directing  economic  relationships;  and  that,  if  the  people  are  willing  to  stand 
for  it  and  want  it,  economic  forces  may  be  effectively  regulated  to  attain  greater  public 
welfare  through  the  processes  of  social  control. 

These  are  the  men  who  have  constituted  the  friends  and  directors  of  the  New  Deal. 
Eclectic  as  they  are,  they  offer  no  single  formula.  They  differ  among  themselves  as  to 
the  most  desirable  ends  to  be  sought,  and  as  to  the  most  efficient  means  of  achieving 
them.  They  are  alike  only  in  their  assumptions  concerning  the  basic  nature  of  the 
economic  system. 

Some  are  nationalists,  some  are  internationalists.  Some  prefer  advancement  through 
improvement  of  the  economic  conditions  of  the  poorest  classes,  some  prefer  advancement 
through  stimulation  of  the  rich,  or  of  corporate  organizations.  Some  seek  recovery 
through  price  inflation,  some  through  deliberate  wage  deflation.  Some  favor  government 
ownership  of  one  or  several  economic  institutions,  some  want  no  government  ownership. 

Under  these  conditions  is  it  any  wonder  that  we  do  not  understand  what  the  Wash- 
ington economists  are  driving  at?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  Washington  doesn't  know  what 
it  is  driving  at?  Apparently  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  resorting  to  first  one  move  and  then 
another,  following  one  line  of  advice  and  then  another;  but  driving,  at  least  so  I  hope, 
toward  a  goal  of  greater  economic  welfare  for  the  nation,  and,  more  particularly,  for  a 
more  widespread  distribution  of  economic  well-being.  All,  it  seems,  is  based  upon  the 
institutional  assumption  of  the  eclectic  school  of  economists. 

This  survey  of  economics,  I  said  in  the  beginning,  was  designed  to  eliminate  con- 
fusion. I  have  outlined  for  you,  however,  so  much  chaos  that,  if  you  do  not  understand 
the  current  thinking  of  American  economists,   I   do  not   blame  you! 


1920'S  PHI  BETA  KAPPAS 

The  Agnes  Scott  Chapter  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa  has  named  for  membership  the  following 
members  of  the  class  of  1920:  Alice  (Cooper)  Bell,  Margaret  (Bland)  Sewell,  Eliza- 
beth Lovett,  Rosalind  (Wurm)  Council,  Laura  Stockton  (Molloy)  Dowling,  Mary 
Guerrant   (Burnett)   Thorington. 


ALUMNAE  LAWYER  PLACED 

Patricia  Collins,  of  the  class  of  1928,  has  been  singularly  honored  by  a  recent  ap- 
pointment to  the  anti-trust  division  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Justice.  Patricia 
has  established  residence  in  the  nation's  capital  at  1376  Harvard  Street,  N.  W. 


COUNCILLORS- AT-LARGE 

The  four  councillors-at-large  named  by  the  Executive  Board  of  the  Alumnae  Asso- 
ciation at  its  January  meeting  are:  Sarah  (Till)  Davis,  '22;  Penelope  (Brown)  Barnett, 
'32;  Charis  (Hood)  Barwick,  '16;  and  Elaine  Exton,  ex-'31. 


COMMENCEMENT 

Reunion  Classes  this  May  are  '26,  '27,  '28,  '29,  '07,  '08,  '09,  '10,  '34.  The  usual 
barrage  of  correspondence,  giving  the  details  of  the  Commencement  program,  will  be 
sent  out  shortly.  Meanwhile,  if  you  are  of  this  number,  begin  making  plans  to  be  at 
Decatur  for  May  24  to  May  28  NOW! 


FOUNDER'S  DAY  GREETING  TO  THE  ALUMNAE 

Nannette  Hopkins 
Dean  of  Agnes  Scott  College 

It  is  my  privilege  and  pleasure  to  bring  you  again  greetings  from  your  Alma  Mater. 
To  each  one  of  you  I  wish  to  give  also  a  personal  greeting.  I  think  of  you  with  pride 
mingled  with  many  happy  memories. 

I  hope  many  of  you  will  find  this  week  a  convenient  time  for  your  home-coming. 
An  interesting  and  helpful  program  has  been  arranged  and  a  most  cordial  welcome  awaits 
you  at  your  second  home.  We  are  pleased  and  encouraged  by  the  good  news  that 
continually  comes  to  us  of  your  work  in  the  home,  the  church,  the  schools,  in  social 
service,  in  artistic  and  professional  fields.  Daughters  of  Agnes  Scott,  may  you  be  an 
ever-increasing  inspiration  and  source  of  strength  to  those  whose  lives  you  touch.  In 
you  we  see  the  fulfillment  of  the  purpose  of  our  founders. 

Let  us  remember  this  afternoon  that  one  who  has  been  called  the  first  Agnes  Scott 
girl — Mrs.  Agnes  Irvine  Scott.  In  1816,  then  seventeen  years  old,  she  left  Ireland  on  a 
sailing  vessel  and  after  a  voyage  of  thirty-six  days  landed  in  this  country.  The  primitive 
mode  of  living  in  this  new  country  contrasted  strongly  with  the  comforts  and  oppor- 
tunities she  had  left  behind,  and  she  shed  many  bitter  tears  in  this  strange  land.  With 
courage  and  determination  this  homesick  girl  overcame  the  handicaps  of  her  new  sur- 
roundings and  years  later,  as  an  intelligent,  Christian  mother,  she  so  impressed  her  son 
that  he  honored  her  memory  by  endowing  our  College  as  a  memorial  to  her.  Many 
thousand  girls  honor  her  name  and  bear  the  impress  of  her  character.  Today  we  celebrate 
the  birthday  of  that  son,  Colonel  George  Washington  Scott,  whose  generosity  made  our 
College  possible. 

With  gratitude  we  remember  our  great  leaders — Dr.  F.  H.  Gaines,  Mr.  Samuel  M. 
Inman,  Mr.  J.  K.  Orr  and  all  who  have  had  a  part  in  bringing  your  Alma  Mater  to  its 
present  position  of  prestige  and  influence. 

In  the  early  days  of  its  history  when  most  in  need  of  friends  this  institution  found 
one  in  Mr.  Charles  Murphey  Candler,  Sr.,  the  only  members  of  the  original  Board  of 
Trustees  who  is  still  connected  with  the  College.  Mr.  Candler  was  never  too  busy  to 
give  generously  of  his  valuable  time  to  the  young  institution.  No  work  for  it  was 
ever  too  difficult  or  too  humble  to  claim  his  attention. 

President  McCain  has  great  plans  for  the  further  development  of  the  College.  One 
plan  has  been  made  in  which  he  has  had  no  part  whatsoever — the  one  concerning  his 
portrait.  Such  a  portrait  has  long  been  desired.  The  Class  of  193  3  took  the  first 
definite  step  toward  realizing  this  desire  by  devising  a  clever  way  to  obtain  funds  for 
the  purpose.  This  session  the  president  of  Student  Government,  Miss  Alberta  Palmour, 
initiated  a  plan  by  which  faculty,  officers,  alumnae,  and  the  student  body  made  it 
possible  to  have  the  portrait  this  year.  Mr.  Sidney  Dickinson,  a  nationally  famed  artist, 
has  accepted  the  commission  for  the  portrait  which  will  be  finished  by  the  third  week 
of  March.     Come  to  Commencement  and  see  it  unveiled. 

To  relatives,  to  friends,  to  all  who  are  listening  in  this  afternoon  a  very  cordial 
greeting! 


A  MESSAGE  FROM  THE  TRUSTEES 

George  Winship 
Member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Agnes  Scott  College 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  have  a  part  in  this  program  and  to  extend  greetings  from  the 
Trustees  to  the  Alumnae  of  the  College  and  to  any  friends  who  may  be  listening. 

When  we  see  institutions  or  organizations  at  their  present  stages  of  development 
we  are  sometimes  prone  to  forget  what  they  were  in  their  early  days,  and  the  struggles 
they  had  at  that  time.  It  is  also  well  to  remind  ourselves  regarding  the  ideals  and  objec- 
tives of  the  founders. 

This  especially  is  true  of  Agnes  Scott.  It  was  born  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  Dr. 
F.  H.  Gaines,  who  was  then  pastor  of  the  Decatur  Presbyterian  Church,  and  Colonel 
George  W.  Scott  of  Decatur. 

Colonel  Scott  gave  the  original  grounds  and  the  main  building  now  known  as  Agnes 
Scott  Hall  which  was  the  only  building  on  the  campus  for  a  number  of  years.  It  was 
named  in  honor  and  memory  of  his  mother,  Agnes  Scott. 

During  the  more  than  forty  years  of  its  life  the  college  has  had  only  two  presidents, 
Dr.  Gaines  who  died  in  1922,  and  Dr.  J.  R.  McCain,  the  present  executive  head,  who 
succeeded  him. 

The  Trustees  have  had  only  four  chairmen  and  what  towers  of  strength  these  men 
have  been — Dr.  Gaines,  Colonel  Scott,  Mr.  Samuel  M.  Inman  of  Atlanta  and  for  the  past 
twenty  years,  the  present  chairman,  Mr.  J.  K.  Orr!  Georgia  has  had  few  citizens  of  the 
caliber  of  these  men,  and  how  much  they  have  meant  to  the  College!  The  first  teacher, 
Miss  Nannette  Hopkins,  is  still  with  the  college  as  Dean.  She  has  been  known  and 
loved  by  every  girl  who  has  attended  Agnes  Scott.  It  is  a  real  privilege  for  you  to  hear 
her  voice  on  this  program. 

For  its  students  the  College  has  four  simple  objectives.  The  first  is  very  high  in- 
tellectual attainment.  The  second  emphasis  is  simple  religious  faith.  The  third  is 
physical  well  being.    The  fourth  purpose  is  the  development  of  charming  personalities. 

Time  does  not  permit  me  to  enlarge  on  or  make  further  explanation  regarding  these 
objectives;  they  were  the  ideals  of  the  founders  and  they  have  been  kept  constantly  before 
the  faculty  and  students  of  the  College  throughout  the  years;  it  is  fitting  that  we 
remember  them  on  a  Founder's  Day  Program. 

How  successful  has  the  College  been  in  reaching  these  ideas?  The  answer  is  in  the 
lives  and  accomplishments  of  the  more  than  six  thousand  women  who  have  graduated 
from  or  attended  Agnes  Scott.  In  1934  there  were  students  from  twenty-seven  states 
and  four  foreign  countries  so  that  it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  influence  of  Agnes 
Scott  is  being  felt  throughout  the  United  States  and  elsewhere.  A  large  percentage  of 
these  students  was  from  Georgia  which  means  that  the  citizenship  of  this  state  has 
received  a  large  benefit  from  the  work  of  this  institution. 

During  the  past  two  decades,  under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  McCain  and  Mr.  Orr, 
progress  has  been  more  rapid  than  ever  before  and  the  future  looks  very  bright.  But, 
we  should  not  forget  the  foundation  they  had  to  build  upon  and  our  indebtedness  to 
the  founders  of  the  school. 


THE  BUILDING  PROGRAM  OF  AGNES  SCOTT 

Dr.  J.  R.  McCain 

President  of  Agnes  Scott  College 

It  is  my  very  pleasant  duty  to  talk  about  the  building  plans  of  Agnes  Scott  for  the 
next  year.  I  wonder  whether  any  of  our  alumnae  have  ever  built  air  castles?  If  so, 
you  know  in  a  measure  just  how  we  feel  about  our  plans.  It  is  delightful  to  think  of 
what  may  be  and  to  outline  this  building  or  that,  but  we  know  in  our  hearts  that 
nothing  will  come  to  pass  unless  we  are  able  to  lay  a  solid  foundation  of  cash  collected 
between  now  and  July  1st.  With  this  warning  as  to  the  conditions  that  must  be 
attached,  I  am  glad  to  explain  something  of  what  we  hope  may  come  to  pass. 

The  Carnegie  Corporation  recently  gave  us  $15,000  for  books,  and  our  purchases 
with  college  money  have  also  been  steadily  continued,  so  that  we  have  gotten  to  a  place 
where  we  have  more  books  than  we  can  properly  house  in  our  present  building.  It  is  not 
fire-proof  and  it  is  dangerous  to  have  such  a  valuable  collection  in  a  place  that  does  not 
have  modern  protection.  In  addition,  all  the  newer  methods  of  teaching  in  college 
emphasize  library  use  as  very  essential;  and  the  demand  for  reading  space  has  increased 
even  faster  than  our  student  body.  At  busy  times,  you  may  find  girls  sitting  on 
stairways  or  even  on  the  floor,  trying  to  get  their  needed  materials. 

For  these  and  other  reasons,  our  educational  advisers  and  our  own  staff  feel  that  the 
greatest  single  need  just  now  is  a  new  library  building;  and  so  we  are  planning  for  it. 
We  wish  one  that  is  three  times  the  size  of  our  present  building  and  that  may  eventually 
be  enlarged  without  architectural  trouble  to  six  times  our  present  capacity — not  that 
we  want  our  student  body  to  grow  in  that  ratio,  but  we  want  the  library,  which  is  the 
heart  of  a  modern  college,  to  reflect  the  developing  spirit  of  Agnes  Scott. 

The  location  for  the  library  building  has  not  been  definitely  settled  nor  have  the 
details  of  its  space  and  equipment;  but  it  will  be  a  beautiful  structure  and  will  awaken 
a  sense  of  pride  in  every  Agnes  Scotter.  For  so  many  years  we  have  had  to  consider 
only  utility  in  our  building  that  I  am  anxious  that  we  put  beauty  alongside  of  usefulness 
in  what  we  do  just  now.  I  am  afraid  that  the  building  will  cost  $200,000  to  get  what 
we  want. 

A  second  building  which  we  hope  to  erect  is  one  which  will  provide  additional 
quarters  for  our  Science  Departments.  When  our  present  Science  Building  was  erected 
we  had  only  three  science  teachers.  Now  we  have  ten  teachers  and  twice  as  many 
students  as  formerly.  It  makes  a  real  problem  for  us  to  find  room  for  class  work  as 
well  as  for  laboratory  experiments.  The  General  Education  Board  officials  who  visited 
our  campus  were  thoroughly  "sold"  on  our  opportunities  and  our  needs  in  this  field; 
and  it  was  for  this  improvement  that  they  were  willing  to  put  up  an  extra  $100,000  if 
we  can  handle  the  remainder  of  our  job. 

We  are  not  sure  where  this  building  will  be  erected  either,  but  it  will  be  relatively 
close  to  our  present  Science  Hall.  Eventually  we  will  hope  to  bring  all  the  sciences 
together  again,  and  also  the  proposed  Department  of  the  Home,  in  one  building;  but  we 
will  not  have  money  enough  for  it  now,  and  hence  the  new  building  will  be  designed 
so  as  to  be  expanded  to  twice  its  size  without  architectural  change. 

A  third  building  development  in  which  we  are  keenly  interested  is  the  transforming 
of  our  present  library  structure  into  a  Students'  Activities  Building.  It  will  be  admir- 
able for  this  purpose.  The  large  reading  room  will  be  ideal  for  receptions  and  general 
relaxation;  and  the  smaller  rooms  will  provide  adequate  and  attractive  quarters  for  all 
the  clubs  and  organizations  on  the  campus.  The  day  students  particularly  will  find 
it  a  delightful  place  in  which  to  feel  at  home. 


\6  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

A  fourth  development  that  is  not  exactly  a  building  project  is  nevertheless  important. 
We  wish  to  extend  the  paved  drive  in  front  of  Buttrick  Hall  so  that  it  will  go  directly 
to  Candler  Street,  and  then  to  make  a  connection  also  with  the  front  drive  so  that  sight- 
seers may  really  drive  through  the  campus  and  find  out  what  a  fine  place  we  have.  It 
will  necessitate  our  moving  the  Infirmary  another  time,  but  it  is  accustomed  to  being 
shifted  about,  and  it  may  require  Dr.  Sweet  to  give  up  her  garden;  but  it  will  add  im- 
mensely to  the  looks  and  to  the  comfort  of  our  Agnes  Scott  campus. 

We  invite  you  now  to  lay  your  plans  so  as  to  be  with  us  for  the  opening  of  college 
in  1936  and  to  see  as  completed  realities  these  things  of  which  we  now  dream;  for 
we  do  believe  with  all  our  hearts  that  the  way  will  open  up,  through  the  efforts  of  us  all, 
for  the  splendid  opportunities  to  be  realized. 


WITH  OUR  CLUBS 


The  Atlanta  Club  has  made  it  possible  for  the  top  to  be  placed  on  the  Alumnae 
Garden  pergola,  through  a  generous  gift  from  the  club  treasury  and  through  the  pledged 
support  of  the  groups  under  Mary  (Warren)  Read,  '29;  Louise  (Brown)  Hastings,  '23; 
and  Sara  (Berry)  West,  '32.  The  group  under  Mary  (Crenshaw)  McCullough,  '28,  has 
redecorated  the  College  Guest  Room  in  the  Alumnae  House.  At  a  table  setting  contest 
conducted  at  Davison-Paxon's  the  club  won  first  honorable  mention. 

Two  new  clubs  are  the  Chattanooga  and  Chicago  groups.  The  former  will  be  in- 
strumental in  bringing  prospective  students  to  the  campus  for  May  Day. 

The  Business  Girls'  Group  of  the  Atlanta  Club  has  donated  linens  to  the  rooms  main- 
tained for  the  convenience  of  Day  Students  in  Inman  Hall. 

The  Decatur  Club  is  making  plans  for  the  annual  children's  party  at  Commencement. 
Thanks  to  the  generosity  of  this  group,  the  furniture  in  two  Alumnae  House  guest 
rooms  has  been  painted  recently. 

The  Washington  Club  met  in  April,  when  Elinor  Hamilton,  '34,  Field  Alumnae 
Secretary,  visited  the  capitol  for  the  National  Conference  of  Alumni  Secretaries. 


POETESS  VISITS  CAMPUS 

A  recent  visitor  on  the  campus,  whose  appearance  excited  much  favorable  comment, 
was  Leonora  (Owsley)  Herman  of  the  Institute.  Reading  in  Chapel  on  the  morning 
of  March  20th,  she  gave  a  fine  selection  of  poems  from  her  recently  published  volume, 
Rather  Personal. 


A  write-up  of  the  Marietta,  Georgia,  alumnae  meeting  on  February  22  reached  the 
office  too  late  to  be  included  in  Sara  Cook's  article.  The  Offiice  extends  thanks  to  Hazel 
(Murphy)    Elder,  ex-'12,  for  her  cooperation  and  hospitality  at  this  time. 


So  well  pleased  have  the  College  authorities  been  with  the  splendid  work  of  Mr.  Sidney 
Dickinson  in  painting  Dr.  McCain's  portrait,  that  he  has  been  given  the  commission  for 
the  portrait  of  Mr.  J.  K.  Orr,  Sr.,  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  and  of  the  late 
Mr.  Samuel  M.  Inman,  former  Chairman  of  the  Board. 


April  9th  has  been  set  aside  for  a  campus  campaign.    The  pledges  of  students  and 
faculty  are  expected  to  help  us  reach  our  goal  set  for  July  1st. 


A  WORD  ABOUT  THE  ALUMNAE  WEEK-END 

Lucile  Alexander,  '11 
Professor  of  Romance  Languages  at  Agnes  Scott  College 

In  the  early  1920's,  when  interest  in  adult  education  was  very  definitely  crystalizing 
and  alumni  secretaries  were  falling  in  line  with  "College  after  College  courses,"  the  alum- 
na (and  alumnus)  of — say,  ten  years'  standing — was  fired  with  the  ambition  not  to  fall 
under  the  current  (and  rather  waggish)  definition  of  an  adult — "someone  who  has 
stopped  growing  at  the  two  ends  to  grow  in  the  middle."  Under  the  auspices  of  the 
Carnegie  Corporation,  conferences  of  college  presidents  and  alumni  officers  were  called  to 
consider  alumni  education. 

At  Agnes  Scott  a  small  beginning  was  made  in  1925-1926.  Directed  reading 
courses  were  undertaken.  With  the  aid  of  members  of  the  Agnes  Scott  faculty, 
reading  lists  were  prepared  and  mailed  to  interested  alumnae.  The  response  was 
gratifying,  and  this  small  beginning  was  put  in  the  hands  of  the  Curriculum  Com- 
mittee of  the  Alumnae  Association  for  development.  Members  of  our  faculty  furnished 
well-considered  outlines  to  guide  the  reader.  Our  most  interested  readers  were  the 
small  town  teachers.  They  had  no  library  facilities;  it  was  impossible  for  any  one  of 
them  to  buy,  from  the  small  salary  check,  the  twelve  or  fourteen  books  needed  in 
each  course.  In  this  moment  of  crisis  the  day  was  saved  by  the  generous  example 
of  Miss  Jean  Davis,  our  then  Professor  of  Sociology  and  Economics,  who  made  a  per- 
sonal contribution  of  the  volumes  needed  for  the  course  in  Sociology — a  gift  which 
started,  in  a  small  way,   a  circulating  library. 

Interest  grew.  Our  Alumnae  Quarterly  began  to  carry  lists  of  summer  reading,  of 
reading  on  topics  of  current  interest.  In  1930,  the  Curriculum  Committee,  under 
the  chairmanship  of  Adelaide  Cunningham,  '11,  made  plans  to  bring  the  alumnae  back 
to  the  campus  for  two  days  of  lectures  on  vital  subjects.  Thus  it  was  that  the  First 
Alumnae  Week-End  happened.  The  time  chosen  was  Thanksgiving,  to  coincide  with 
the  Home-Coming  Tea  at  the  Anna  Young  Alumnae  House.  Six  lectures  were  arranged 
for  the  two  days  on  Child  Psychology,  Social  Case  Work,  Current  History  and 
Literature.  The  hundred  alumnae  present  enjoyed  seeing  the  College  in  action:  the 
art  exhibit,  the  book  exhibit,  the  horse  show;  but  most  of  all  they  enjoyed  the  sensation 
of  being  once  more  in  the  class  room  in  the  attitude  of  learner.  They  found  satisfac- 
tion in  the  sense  of  stimulation  to  present-day  lines  of  thought.  Their  suggestions  for 
future  programs  included  a  request  for  more  Agnes  Scott  professors  as  lecturers. 
Accordingly,  the  programs  for  the  second  and  third  Alumnae  Week-Ends,  arranged 
under  the  leadership  of  Mary  Ben  (Wright)  Erwin,  '2  5,  were  largely  given  by  members 
of  the  Agnes  Scott  faculty. 

The  present  Curriculum  Committee,  with  Clara  (Whips)  Dunn,  '16,  as  chairman, 
has  made  several  innovations  in  the  program  of  this  our  Fourth  Alumnae  Week-End. 
The  time  has  been  changed  to  February  22  and  23,  to  coincide  with  Founder's  Day. 
To  give  unity  to  the  lectures,  two  central  themes  have  been  chosen:  Our  Changing 
Standards,  and  Motherhood  a  Profession  for  the  College  Woman.  This  morning  in  But- 
trick  Hall  Dr.  Emma  May  Laney  of  Agnes  Scott  told  us  what  is  expected  of  the  present- 
day  college  woman;  Dr.  Philip  Davidson,  also  of  the  Agnes  Scott  faculty,  and  Dr. 
Mercer  Evans  of  Emory  University  clarified  our  confused  ideas  of  present-day  govern- 
ments and  economics.  Tomorrow,  between  ten  and  twelve,  this  theme  of  changing 
standards  will  be  rounded  out  by  lectures  in  the  fields  of  Philosophy,  Medicine  and 
Literature  by  Drs.  Loemker  and  Kracke  of  Emory  and  Dr.  Hayes  of  Agnes  Scott.  The 
lectures  arranged  primarily  to  interest  mothers  will  run  concurrently,  and  to  make  it 
possible  for  many  mothers  to  attend,  Llewellyn  Wilburn,  '19,  Agnes  Scott  Professor  of 
Physical  Education,  has  undertaken  to  provide  for  alumnae  children  between  the  ages 
of  four  and  twelve  a  morning  of  games,  story-telling,  swimming,  folk  dancing. 


CHANGING  EMPHASES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Dr.  Leroy  Loemker 
Associate  Professor  of  Philosophy  at  Emory  University 

"At  last,"  said  one  of  America's  foremost  thinkers  after  a  student  had  ventured  to 
attack  his  pet  theory  of  the  ideality  of  time,  "the  biblical  miracle  has  been  repeated. 
Balaam's  ass  has  spoken."  An  attempt  to  discuss  contemporary  movements  in  philosophy 
at  all  adequately  would  once  more  repeat  the  miracle.  I  shall  choose  rather  to  discuss 
the  philosophic  attitude  in  modern  life  and  the  contributions  it  is  beginning  to  make 
toward  a  clearer  understanding  of  twentieth  century  issues,  illustrating  with  five  or  six 
intellectual  problems  which  seem  to  me  of  great  practical  import. 

1.  We  are  definitely  having  a  philosophical  Renaissance  today.  In  the  face  of  that 
truth,  it  is  important  that  we  remember  what  it  is  that  philosophy  tries  to  do.  The 
word  itself  is  as  common  on  people's  tongues  today  as  was  the  word  psychology  a  decade 
ago,  and  with  probably  even  less  meaning.  Two  of  the  most  common  misconceptions 
of  the  philosophic  task  I  should  like  at  once  to  dispel. 

Philosophy  is  not  the  vain  pursuit  of  a  type  of  truth  that  is  ephemeral,  timeless, 
and  therefore  meaningless  so  far  as  the  everyday  problems  of  life  are  concerned.  It  is 
common  for  the  vast  numbers  of  people  who  find  abstract  thinking  difficult  to  brush  it 
aside  by  saying,  "That's  too  philosophical  for  me."  It  is  true  that  philosophy  is  both 
speculative  and  difficult,  but  it  is  still  of  great  practical  importance.  Plato  himself  aided 
the  false  impression  when,  in  a  world  renouncing  mood,  he  pictured  Thales,  the  philos- 
opher, falling  into  a  well  because  he  had  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  stars,  only  to  be  rescued 
by  his  Thracian  handmaiden,  Common  Sense.  Our  own  age,  with  its  vision  narrowed  to 
material  interests,  rejects  philosophy  because,  as  Novalis  said,  it  bakes  no  bread.  We  are 
moved  in  these  days  of  movies,  radios  and  other  forms  of  propagandistic  emotionalism 
to  cry  as  did  Romeo: 

"Hang    up   philosophy. 
Unless  philosophy  can  make  a  Juliet, 
Displant  a  town,  reverse  a  prince's  doom, 
It   helps   not,   it   avails   not;    talk   no  more." 
But  princes  have  been  doomed,  towns  and  nations  displanted,  and  even  Juliets  destroyed 
for  lack  of  philosophy.    Philosophy  is  not  life,  but  it  seeks  the  guidance  of  life  through 
a  system  of  logically  related  beliefs. 

The  other  misconception,  even  more  apparent,  is  that  any  series  of  convictions  for 
which  one  has  reasons  at  hand  constitute  a  philosophy.  The  Germans  have  never  been 
able  to  engage  in  any  new  action,  not  even  a  Sunday  walk,  without  being  backed  by  a 
whole  Weltanschauung;  now  we  too  are  forming  the  habit  of  seeking  "philosophic" 
justification  for  everything.  Recently  I  saw  a  manual  of  physical  exercise  whose  first 
chapter  was  entitled  "Philosophy."  If  contemporary  fashions  continue,  we  shall  soon 
have  a  philosophy  for  every  political  party,  every  religious  denomination,  every  com- 
bination of  governmental  letters,  every  emotion  of  hope  or  despair.  But  philosophy  is 
much  harder  than  merely  giving  bad  reasons  for  what  you  believe  by  instinct.  To  be 
philosophical,  man  has  really  to  think.  His  thinking  must  be  on  a  scale  as  inclusive  as 
possible.  He  must  think  about  his  convictions  and  the  motives  of  his  conduct,  and  his 
thinking  has  to  be  free  from  contradictions,  consistent,  and  comprehensive.  He  has  to 
think  in  terms  of  principles  general  enough  and  universal  enough  to  cast  light  on  the 
whole  of  experience.  A  person — or  a  nation  or  age — is  not  philosophical  until  it  is  trying 
to  understand  the  beliefs  implicit  in  its  actions,  analyzing  them  to  remove  the  contra- 
dictions it  discovers  in  them,  and  relating  them  by  means  of  magnificent  guesses  about 
the  universe  and  man's  place  in  it.  Intelligence  introducing  order  and  consistency  into 
our  vision,  and  thereby  into  our  actions — that  is  what  philosophy  must  always  be,  de- 
structive of  sham  and  carelessness,  creative  of  new  possibilities. 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  19 

So  though  fashions  change  in  philosophy  as  elsewhere,  there  can  be  no  talk  of  chang- 
ing standards;  whatever  may  be  happening  in  other  circles,  philosophers  are  still  on  the 
gold  standard  of  objective  critical  thinking.  But  the  emphases  change  as  the  human  be- 
liefs which  constitute  its  data  change,  and  since  no  human  interest  has  contributed  more 
to  such  changes  than  has  science,  we  may  well  examine  the  effects  recent  scientific 
changes  have  had  on  philosophy. 

2.  What  emphases  in  philosophy  have  resulted  from  the  deep  and  revolutionary 
changes  in  our  scientific  beliefs?  For  one  thing,  traditional  lines  and  distinctions  between 
the  several  sciences,  and  between  science  and  philosophy,  are  breaking  down.  It  is  no 
longer  easy  to  tell  who  is  a  philosopher  and  who  is  not,  since  the  sciences  themselves  are 
becoming  philosophical.  There  is  poetic  justice  in  this,  for  the  disdain  shown  by  scientists 
for  philosophy  in  the  years  between  Darwin  and  the  World  War  was  colossal.  Their 
sense  of  a  superior  method  and  the  tangible  and  truly  remarkable  achievements  to  the 
credit  of  that  method  drove  many  thinkers  to  repudiate  the  bolder  speculative  ventures 
of  philosophy  and  to  renounce  any  hope  of  truth  beyond  the  scientific.  That  was  the 
period  of  positivism  and  naturalism,  when  the  belief  grew  that  the  world  as  a  whole,  at 
least  so  far  as  we  may  know  it,  must  be  exactly  like  what  the  scientist  has  found  iso- 
lated and  selected  parts  of  it  to  be.  Even  today  some  of  our  most  significant  thinkers, 
like  Santayana  and  Dewey,  tend  to  limit  truth  to  the  restricted  field  of  science  and  to 
relegate  religion,  philosophy,  and  judgments  of  beauty  to  the  realm  of  the  imaginative 
and  fictitious. 

But  in  their  rapid  development  the  sciences  have  now  reached  a  point  where  their 
very  specialization  has  broken  down  the  barriers  between  them  and  cast  doubt  upon  their 
most  general  assumptions,  such  as  that  of  mechanical  determinism  itself.  In  this  sit- 
uation their  lack  of  philosophic  training  has  exposed  the  scientists  themselves  to  con- 
fusion. Thus  extreme  behaviorism  in  psychology  appeals  uncritically  to  a  type  of  nat- 
uralism that  is  hardly  any  longer  respectable  in  the  light  of  the  great  revolution  in 
physics.  Physics  has  had  to  abandon  old  assumptions  such  as  continuity,  matter,  mechan- 
ism. So  has  biology.  Both  are  involved  in  circularities  and  riddles  that  challenge  the 
bolder  speculations  of  philosophy.  In  criticizing  their  own  abstractions  economics  and 
law  have  uncovered  their  roots  in  ethics.  The  result  is  that  philosophy  has  once  more 
become  not  merely  respectable,  but  indispensable  in  its  function  of  pointing  out  the 
possibilities  and  objectives  for  the  sciences. 

3.  Conversely,  these  shifts  and  enlargements  of  the  field  of  science  have  had  an 
important  effect  in  helping  to  overthrow  a  theory  of  the  universe  which  seemed  to  many 
inevitable  fifty  years  ago,  and  which  threatened  constructive  thinking  on  morals,  art, 
and  religion.  That  theory  was  naturalism,  the  view  that  mechanical  process,  indifferent 
to  human  wishes  and  needs,  exhausts  reality  and  completely  explains  man  himself.  It  is 
now  apparently  declining.  First  the  matter  of  the  physicists  disintegrated,  then  the  at- 
tempts to  explain  evolution  mechanically  were  seen  to  be  inadequate,  and  so  evidence  ac- 
cumulated until,  as  Chesterton  once  put  it,  the  stale  and  stuffy  philosophy  was  aban- 
doned by  men  of  science  merely  because  it  was  stale  and  stuffy.  As  opposed  to  it,  old 
philosophical  enemies  are  agreed  and  realists  and  idealists  alike  seem  to  be  converging  on 
a  world  view  that  is  purposive,  creative,  and  optimistic.  So  Professor  A.  N.  Whitehead, 
astute  mathematician  whom  no  less  an  authority  than  Gertrude  Stein  has  hailed  as  one 
of  the  greatest  thinkers,  has  developed  a  system  based  on  the  sciences  and  a  profound 
insight  into  human  history  which  is  realistic  but  asserts  an  organic,  purposive,  more  than 
mechanical  universe  in  which  human  goals  and  dreams  are  important.  So  though  phi- 
losophical standards  do  not  change,  we  seem  now  to  be  at  the  end  of  old  distinctions  and 
schools,  and  to  be  preparing  for  new  alignments  and  classifications  about  issues  more  di- 
rectly related  to  human  hopes  and  experiences. 


20  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

So  much  for  theoretical  problems.  Perhaps  you  will  agree  that  we  had  better  move 
to  the  consideration  of  issues  more  immediately  practical.  Of  such  problems  I  have 
selected  three  which  seem  to  me  to  be  crucial  in  the  confused  intellectual  currents  of 
our  post-war  world — the  problems  of  the  meaning  of  history,  the  significance  of  human 
values,  and  the  objective  reality  of  the  objects  of  religion. 

4.  Historians  gather  the  facts  and  write  history;  philosophy  has  in  the  last  two  hun- 
dred years  sought  to  find  meaning  in  history.  Perhaps  it  is  a  mistake  to  do  so;  certainly 
as  Spengler  has  pointed  out,  the  most  creative  periods  of  human  history  seem  to  have 
disregarded  the  past  or  rejected  its  lessons,  as  the  Athenians  after  Marathon  broke  the 
ancient  marbles  which  graced  the  Acropolis  and  hurled  them  into  the  foundation  of  the 
Parthenon  that,  freed  of  the  past,  they  might  create  a  more  beautiful  future.  But  whether 
right  or  wrong,  we  have  become  increasingly  subjective,  and  since  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury our  subjectivism  has  taken  the  form  of  an  interest  in  the  past.  The  nineteenth 
century  had  its  answers  to  the  meaning  of  history;  it  knew  both  what  made  history  and 
where  it  was  going.  About  its  goal  it  was,  for  a  scientific  century,  surprisingly  opti- 
mistic. After  the  dreams  of  Rousseau  and  the  other  encyclopaedists,  the  logical  deduc- 
tions of  Hegel  and  Comte,  and  the  evolutionary  evidence  of  Darwin,  progress  was  an 
inevitable  assumption.  The  nineteenth  century  also  knew  all  the  answers  as  to  why 
history  moved  forward.  Hegel,  seeing  Napoleon  reviewing  his  troops  at  the  gates  of  Jena, 
goes  home  to  write  in  his  journal,  "This  day  I  saw  the  World  Spirit  on  horse  back,"  and 
so  convinced  was  he  that  whatever  is  is  the  reasonable  expression  of  a  perfectly  ordered 
Absolute  Reason  that  he  regarded  such  contrasting  events  as  the  French  Revolution  and 
the  Holy  Alliance  as  equally  necessary  steps  in  a  perfect  process  toward  a  perfect  goal. 
Tolstoy,  and  Ruskin  and  Wagner  all  regarded  progress  as  inevitable  and  dreamed  of  an 
art  that  would  further  that  progress.  Carlyle's  thesis  that  it  is  great  men  who  make 
history  was  carried  to  its  extreme  by  Nietzsche,  who  added  that  if  a  man  is  great  enough 
he  will  make  history  serve  his  own  ends,  and  rejected  by  Schopenhauer,  who  though  he 
found  history  to  be  the  expression  of  a  restless  and  evil  will,  yet  regarded  its  ends  as 
good,  and  by  Marx,  in  whose  thought  the  one  adequate  motive  to  progress  is  economic. 
But  no  one  questioned  progress  itself. 

Since  the  war  we  are  not  so  sure  and  the  philosophy  of  history  is  being  rethought  in 
terms  of  some  deep  and  disturbing  experiences.  Many  thinkers  have  turned  to  Marx's 
conception  without  following  his  economic  theories  in  detail.  Spengler,  by  contrast, 
found  even  before  the  war  and  brilliantly  expounded  evidence  for  the  work  of  an  ir- 
resistible fate  driving  history  in  cycles,  and  for  our  own  time  only  inevitable  decline. 
But  most  thinkers  today,  as  at  most  times,  find  in  history  neither  inevitable  progress  nor 
inevitable  decay,  but  the  possibility  of  advance  contingent  upon  human  effort  in  creat- 
ing it.  This  view  of  history  as  finding  its  meaning  and  its  motive  force  in  personalities, 
and  capable  of  progress  only  if  they  achieve  it — what  James  called  meliorism — is  still 
the  philosophy  of  liberalism.  Many  enlightened  thinkers  find  world  forces,  super- 
personal  or  at  least  transpersonal,  working  in  support  of  man  in  his  enterprise.  I  may 
mention  here  the  significant  conception  of  history  contained  in  Whitehead's  Adventures 
of  Ideas,  and  in  second  place  Delisle  Burn's  The  Horizons  of  Experience. 

5.  Another,  more  basic  problem  is  that  of  values.  The  question  of  the  significance 
and  nature  of  human  interests,  especially  the  Platonic  triad  of  goodness,  beauty,  and 
truth,  has  always  constituted  one  of  the  two  great  foci  of  philosophic  endeavor.  But 
here  too  our  present  problems  are  a  heritage  of  the  nineteenth  century.  To  enter  into 
the  field  of  modern  value  theory  is  to  enter  a  veritable  maze  of  issues  and  viewpoints. 
Few  thinkers  are  agreed  on  what  values  are,  to  say  nothing  of  agreeing  on  their  classi- 
fication and  significance  in  reality.  I  can  merely  comment  briefly  on  two  general  changes 
in  our  thinking  about  values — on  the  question  of  their  reality,  and  the  question  of 
standards  in  judging  them. 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterl  y  21 

The  naturalism  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with  its  psychological  and  historical  in- 
terests, tended  to  two  views  about  values:  first,  that  they  were  so  obviously  dependent 
on  changing  human  wishes  that  they  were  not  real;  and  second,  that  since  they  depend 
on  human  wishes  there  can  be  no  objective  principle  by  which  to  tell  what  is  really  val- 
uable and  what  is  not.  Darwin  himself  voiced  this  opinion  in  pointing  out  that  beauty 
is  only  an  emotion,  without  a  basis  in  reality.  Of  course  science  cannot  study  the 
sunset  as  beautiful  but  only  as  dust  diffracting  light,  and  so  the  nineteenth  century  held 
beauty  to  be  unreal.  Similarly  Feuerbach  and  others  denied  the  validity  of  the  objects 
of  religion,  finding  the  secret  of  theology  to  be  "not  the  truth  that  God  created  man  in 
his  own  image,  but  that  man  created  God  in  his  own  image,"  an  approach  which  the 
new  sciences  of  anthropology  and  psychology  strengthened.  (A  peculiar  error  to  which 
students,  still  breathing  the  scientific  air  of  the  last  century,  are  prone  is  to  assume  that 
when  we  know  the  origin  of  any  human  interest  we  have  explained  it  away.)  Similarly 
followers  of  Darwin  explained  morality  as  a  product  of  and  a  process  in  the  adaptation 
of  the  individual  (if  you  follow  Nietzsche)  or  of  the  social  group  (if  you  follow  Spencer, 
Kropotkin,  or  Dewey)  to  its  environment  and  therefore  as  a  purely  relative  and  chang- 
ing matter.  It  was  unfortunate  that  philosophers  turned  to  the  critical  investigation 
of  human  values  at  just  this  time  of  scientific  self-confidence,  when  it  was  felt  that  we 
were  about  to  have  revealed  a  world  so  mechanically  correct  as  to  be  a  paradise  of  in- 
telligibility— if  only  we  could  keep  human  desires  and  efforts  out  of  it.  The  natural  re- 
sult was  to  hold  only  that  aspect  of  the  world  to  be  real  which  science  says  is  real,  and 
to  relegate  the  great  eternal  goods  of  Plato  into  the  limbo  of  poetry,  dreams,  and  fiction. 

Fortunately  that  is  changing.  An  evidence  of  the  change  is  the  renewed  interest 
shown  in  the  last  ten  years  in  Plato,  to  whom  we  owe  the  emphasis  on  the  reality  of  the 
spirit.  We  are  still  finding  new  and  timely  meanings  in  the  dialogues  of  the  son  of  Apollo, 
to  which,  as  Whitehead  said  recently,  all  the  rest  of  the  history  of  philosophy  is  but  a 
commentary.  The  psychological  fallacy  has  been  refuted  over  and  over,  and  the  new 
emphasis  on  the  logical  structure  of  values  as  well  as  of  science  has  driven  many  thinkers 
of  all  schools  to  try  to  recapture  a  view  of  the  universe  in  which  values  are  as  significant 
as  facts — in  which  the  world,  as  Lotze  once  put  it,  not  only  is  a  fact  but  has  a  meaning. 

That  cannot  be  accomplished,  however,  until  the  practical  problem  of  standards  has 
been  solved.  Horace's  de  gustibtis  non  est  disputandum  has  been  extended  in  these  post- 
war years  to  every  field,  with  the  result  that  unintelligence  and  propaganda  are  effective 
as  never  before.  Certainly  the  orgy  of  schools  in  the  arts  reveals  either  a  blind  search 
for  new  standards,  or  possibly  a  feeling  of  disgust  at  any.  The  collapse  of  morals  was 
a  byword  a  few  years  ago.  New  religious  cults,  each  claiming  exclusive  truth,  have 
flourished.  Our  bearings  are  lost,  and  old  irreconcilables — beauty  and  ugliness,  good  and 
bad,  even  true  and  false — are  most  confusingly  blurred.  What  else  could  happen  in  a 
world  plunged  suddenly  from  peace  to  war  morality,  from  agricultural  to  industrial  eco- 
nomics, a  world  grown  subjective  whose  rule  was  experimentalism.  But  from  this  con- 
fusion has  resulted  either  a  great  Weltschmerz,  an  exhaustion  of  defeat,  or  a  longing  for 
some  certainties.  Many  have  sought  refuge  in  the  authorities  of  the  past  or  the  present, 
some  in  a  confusing  intuitionalism  or  mysticism,  some  in  a  comforting  other-worldliness. 
But  the  most  hopeful  way  out  is  offered,  I  believe,  by  those  philosophers  who  have  the 
patience  to  engage  in  careful  analysis  of  the  human  experiences  of  beauty,  and  character, 
and  truth,  to  find  in  their  logical  structures  a  principle  for  making  anew  the  age  old  and 
greatly  needed  distinctions.  We  cannot  return  to  the  old,  whether  in  art  or  morals  or 
statesmanship  or  religion,  and  it  is  of  tremendous  importance  what  is  the  new  which  we 
shall  adopt. 

In  short,  the  philosophers  are  beginning  again  to  recognize  the  responsibility  which 
thinking  must  carry  in  the  planning  of  life.    A  mood  of  seriousness  has  overcome  them; 


22  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

they  are  not  so  much  trying  to  abandon  their  syllogism-grinding  as  to  apply  it,  in  sup- 
plementing science,  which  always  deals  with  the  means,  never  with  the  ends  of  humanity, 
by  envisioning  the  world  of  what-ought-to-be. 

6.  One  further  change  should  be  noted.  Philosophers  today  are  concerned,  as  they 
were  not  in  the  nineteenth  century,  with  the  Eternal.  Even  fifteen  years  ago  God  was 
not  a  philosophical  term,  though  of  course  there  were  substitutes.  Today  one  of  the 
real  problems  of  thought  is  the  old  search  of  Job.  And  again  the  most  diverse  philos- 
ophies are  converging  on  a  conception  of  God,  purposive,  immanent  in  a  developing 
world,  wanting  supreme  values,  and  to  whose  nature  man  and  his  creative  enterprises  are 
important.  Some  hesitate  to  call  God  personal,  fearing  the  oversimplifications  that  term 
implies;  others  find  in  that  concept  the  key  to  understanding  this  benevolent,  creative 
spiritual  process.  We  are  in  for  a  revival  of  metaphysics,  and  in  general  a  useful  meta- 
physics, a  metaphysics  that  will  influence  literature,  art,  and  preaching,  and  even,  we 
hope,  government  and  economic  relations. 

Meanwhile  what  is  most  important  is  that  we  all  should  catch  the  philosophic  vision 
— to  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole,  that  we  may  turn  incompleteness  into  perfection. 
The  world  is  not,  perhaps  fortunately,  a  philosopher's  world.  But  it  can  lose  nothing  by 
taking  on  more  of  the  aura  of  reason.  Diderot  once  said,  "It  would  be  necessary  to  turn 
the  world  upside  down  to  place  it  under  the  dominion  of  philosophy."  Philosophy  and 
religion  seem  at  least  to  be  interested  in  the  same  task,  for  I  recall  that  at  Thessalonica 
the  early  Christians  were  known  as  "those  who  have  turned  the  world  upside  down." 


AGNES  SCOTT  ANNOUNCER  PLACED 

Polly  Vaughan,  '34,  who  has  announced  the  weekly  Agnes  Scott  radio  programs  this 
semester,  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  win  an  eight  weeks'  commercial  contract  over  WSB. 


MISS  McKINNEY 

Miss   McKinney's   many   alumnae   friends   will   regret    to   learn   of   a   painful   fall   in 
March,  when  she  broke  both  of  her  wrists.    She  has  resumed  her  work. 


ALUMNAE  AUTHOR 

Rose  B.  Knox,  Institute,  has  been  singularly  honored  by  The  Wilson  Bulletin  (Jan- 
uary, 193  5  issue),  which  carried  a  lovely  cut  of  the  author  and  a  personal  interview. 
The  same  issue  has  an  annotated  bibliography,  The  South  in  Books  for  Children,  A  Sur- 
vey: 1852-1933,  compiled  by  this  one  of  our  alumnae.  We  extend  congratulations  to 
her  in  her  continued  success  as  an  author  of  children's  stories  of  the  Old  South. 


PRACTICE  OF  MEDICINE  IN  THE  FUTURE 

Dr.  Roy  R.  Kracke 
Professor  of  Medicine  at  Emory  University 

A  study  of  this  question  necessarily  should  include  an  analysis  of  the  methods  of 
medical  practice  of  today.  Since,  of  course,  the  future  of  medicine  is  only  speculative  it 
is  well  to  study  this  problem  from  a  standpoint  of  data  collected  dealing  with  present 
day  practice.  To  discuss  adequately  plans  that  are  now  contemplated  by  the  State  and 
Federal  Governments  for  changing  methods  of  medical  practice,  no  data  is  so  informative 
as  that  which  was  accumulated  by  President  Hoover's  Committee  on  the  Cost  of  Medical 
Care,  which  report  was  released  in  November,  1932.  This  will  be  discussed  in  detail 
since  it  presents  in  a  concise  and  authoritative  fashion  the  shortcomings  of  medicine  and 
medical  care  as  they  now  exist,  and,  furthermore,  since  the  information  was  gathered  at 
a  cost  of  nearly  a  million  dollars,  it  is  well  to  consider  in  detail  many  important  facts 
that  are  brought  out  in  it. 

It  is  probable  that  since  the  report  on  conditions  in  the  medical  schools,  published 
in  1909  by  the  Carnegie  Foundation,  no  document  of  more  importance  in  the  care  of 
the  sick  has  appeared,  than  the  final  report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Cost  of  Medical  Care. 
This  occurred  at  a  time  when  America  was  in  the  third  year  of  the  Depression,  which 
undoubtedly  colored  somewhat  the  reception  accorded  the  report. 

On  April  1,  1926,  some  15  leaders  in  medically  related  fields  came  together  in  Wash- 
ington for  a  conference.  The  cost  of  medical  care  had  been  the  subject  of  much  com- 
plaint. Furthermore,  many  practitioners  of  medicine  had  been  placed  in  a  difficult  posi- 
tion with  respect  to  income  and  facilities  with  which  to  work,  resulting  in  a  marked 
failure  to  utilize  fully  the  result  of  scientific  research  in  medical  practice  or  to  give  the 
people  the  service  they  needed. 

At  a  second  conference  in  Washington  (May  17,  1927)  the  nucleus  of  the  Hoover 
Committee  was  created  and  after  considerable  study  a  five  year  program  of  research  was 
adopted.  For  most  of  the  five  year  period  this  unofficial  group  was  composed  of  48  mem- 
bers, representing  the  fields  of  private  practice,  public  health,  medical  institutions,  the 
social  sciences,  special  interests  and  the  general  public.  The  Committee  served  under  the 
chairmanship  of  Secretary  Ray  Lyman  Wilbur,  who,  being  a  physician,  was  well  fitted 
for  the  task.  They  expended  a  little  less  than  a  million  dollars,  and  had  an  immense 
amount  of  data  and  labor  donated  by  interested  agencies  and  individuals. 

The  Committee  completed  its  studies  and  published  its  final  report  in  1932,  which 
for  the  purposes  of  this  paper  can  best  be  treated  under  two  heads:  (1)  The  present 
status  of  medical  service,  and  (2)  Recommendations  as  to  how  a  satisfactory  medical 
program  can  be  accomplished. 

At  the  present  time,  many  persons  do  not  receive  medical  service  which  is  adequate 
either  in  quantity  or  quality,  and  the  costs  are  unequally  distributed.  The  result  is  a 
tremendous  amount  of  preventable  physical  pain  and  mental  anguish,  needless  deaths, 
economic  inefficiency,  and  social  waste.  Furthermore,  these  conditions  are  largely  un- 
necessary. The  tremendous  advances  of  medicine,  as  a  profession,  during  the  last  25  years 
are  generally  well  known,  but  as  an  economic  activity  it  has  made  very  little  progress. 
A  barrier,  in  large  part  economic,  stands  between  practitioners,  able  and  eager  to  serve, 
and  patients  who  need  the  service,  but  are  either  unwilling  or  unable  to  pay  for  it.  This 
barrier  seems  rooted  in  the  age  old  institution  of  private  individual  practice,  which  has 
broken  down  under  the  requirements  and  complexities  of  modern  life. 

Nearly  1,100,000  persons  in  the  United  States  devote  all  or  a  part  of  their  time  to 
providing  medical  service.  About  one-half  of  these  are  practitioners.  There  were  in 
1930  nearly  seven  thousand  hospitals  of  1,000,000  beds,  8,000  clinics,  about  60,000  drug 
stores  and  a  few  private  laboratories.    Most  cities  and  a  few  rural  areas  had  health  de- 


24  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

partments.  These  are  the  facilities  on  which  the  American  people  rely  for  the  prevention 
and  cure  of  disease. 

These  facilities,  however,  are  not  distributed  primarily  according  to  needs,  but  rather 
according  to  real  or  supposed  ability  of  patients  to  pay.  As  a  result,  many  communities 
are  undersupplied,  while  others  have  a  surplus.  For  example,  in  1929  there  was  one 
physician  to  every  1,431  persons  in  South  Carolina,  as  contrasted  with  one  to  every  571 
in  California  and  one  to  every  621  in  New  York  state.  Of  the  3,072  counties  in  the 
United  States,  only  1,765  in  1928  had  hospitals  for  general  community  use.  Wisconsin 
had  one  bed  for  community  use  to  every  154  persons,  while  South  Carolina  had  one  bed 
to  each  740  persons.  Similar  conclusions  are  reached  from  data  on  other  states.  There  is 
also  a  maldistribution  by  type.  For  example,  approximately  45  per  cent  of  the  physicians 
of  the  country  have  completely  or  partially  limited  their  practice  to  a  specialty,  although 
apparently  the  needs  of  the  people  could  be  met  adequately  if  not  more  than  1 8  per  cent 
of  physicians  were  specialists. 

In  a  nationwide  survey  of  illnesses  and  costs  of  medical  service  among  8,000  white 
families,  the  committee  found  that  there  was  substantially  the  same  incidence  of  illness 
per  family  in  the  various  broad  income  groups.  Families  with  incomes  under  $2,000, 
however,  receive  far  less  medical  service  than  those  with  incomes  of  $5,000  or  of  $10,000 
and  over.  It  is  evident  that  the  two  or  three  lowest  income  groups  receive  far  less  of 
nearly  every  service,  than  the  groups  with  highest  incomes.  Only  one-fifth  as  many 
persons  in  the  lowest  income  group  receive  any  dental  attention.  The  families  with  in- 
comes of  $1,200  to  $2,000  receive  even  less  hospitalization  than  do  the  families  with  in- 
comes under  $1,200. 

The  most  reliable  criteria  of  the  adequacy  of  services  are  the  number  of  home,  office 
and  clinic  calls  by  physicians  and  the  per  capita  number  of  days  of  hospitalization.  Of 
these  two  items  the  well-to-do  patients  received  87  per  cent  of  the  standard  amount, 
while  the  groups  with  smaller  incomes  obtain  far  less  service.  In  spite  of  the  large  volume 
of  free  work  done  by  hospitals,  health  departments,  and  practitioners,  and  in  spite  of 
the  sliding  scale  of  charges,  it  appears  that  each  year  nearly  one-half  of  the  individuals 
in  the  lowest  income  group  receive  no  professional,  medical  or  dental  attention  of  any 
kind,  curative  or  preventive. 

Turning  now  to  dental  care,  the  Committee  found  that  the  annual  expenditure  was 
extremely  low  among  the  90  per  cent  of  families  with  incomes  under  $5,000.  Thus, 
among  families  with  incomes  of  $1,200  to  $2,000  the  average  annual  expenditure  for 
dental  care  is  $9.01.  Families  with  these  incomes  or  less  constitute  one-half  the  total 
population.  Families  with  incomes  of  $2,000  to  $3,000  spend  an  average  of  $16.39  or 
nearly  twice  as  much. 

Probably  over  60  per  cent  of  the  one-half  billion  dollars  expended  annually  for  dental 
service  comes  from  2  5  per  cent  of  the  population  with  incomes  of  $3,000  or  more. 
Though  there  are  other  explanations,  undoubtedly  the  economic  deterrent  is  the  chief 
factor  in  this  condition. 

The  report  shows  equal  or  even  worse  conditions  in  matters  of  mental  hygiene,  health 
service  for  negroes  as  a  group,  the  use  of  preventive  medical  services,  public  health  activ- 
ities, and,  in  fact  every  phase  of  adequate  medical  care. 

Very  pertinent  to  the  general  problem  is  a  comparison  of  the  cost  of  medical  care  to 
the  national  income.  Medical  service  has  always  been  essentially  a  personal  service.  Con- 
trary to  the  trend  in  other  activity,  increased  specialization  and  a  larger  capital  invest- 
ment have  tended  to  increase  rather  than  decrease  cost  to  the  consumer.  The  people  of 
the  United  States  in  1929  spent  $3,656,000,000  for  all  forms  of  medical  service,  includ- 
ing that  purchased  indirectly  through  taxes.  This  is  about  $30.00  per  capita  per  annum 
and  constituted  4  per  cent  of  the  money  income  of  the  country.    This  expenditure  is 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  25 

not  excessive  for  the  population  as  a  wtwle  in  view  of  a  national  expenditure  of  a  near 
equal  amount  for  each  of  the  following:  tobacco,  toilet  articles,  and  recreation,  or  of 
twice  the  sum  for  automobiles.  As  the  burden  becomes  more  distributed  during  the  next 
few  decades,  undoubtedly  a  far  larger  sum  will  be  expended  without  hardship.  Some  of 
the  present  expenditure,  however,  could  be  checked  or  redirected.  For  example,  of  the 
three  and  one-half  billions  spent  for  medical  service,  12  5  millions  go  to  osteopaths, 
chiropractors,  naturopaths,  faith  healers  and  allied  groups,  and  three  hundred  sixty  mil- 
lions for  patent  medicines.  Of  course,  much  of  this  is  wasted,  but  regardless  of  waste 
and  inferior  service,  however,  the  Committee  feels  that  the  annual  expenditure  for  med- 
ical service  is  reasonable. 

The  primary  reason  why  the  costs  of  medical  care  cause  complaint  is  that  the  costs  are 
uneven  and  unpredictable.  The  costs  of  medical  care  in  any  one  year  now  fall  very  un- 
evenly upon  different  families  in  the  same  income  and  population  groups.  The  heart  of 
the  problem,  therefore,  is  the  equalization  of  the  financial  impact  of  sickness.  The  in- 
dividual family  derives  no  comfort  from  the  knowledge  that  the  average  cost  of  medical 
care  is  not  excessive  with  the  average  income.  If  a  family  lays  aside  for  medical  costs 
4  per  cent  of  its  annual  income  (say  $110)  it  may  spend  only  $10  or  it  may  spend 
$1,000.  Installment  paying  of  predictable  expenditures  has  encouraged  budgeting,  but 
the  fact  that  illness  cannot  be  predicted  makes  budgeting  for  medical  care  practically 
impossible.  On  the  present  fee-for-service  basis,  it  is  impossible  for  99  per  cent  of  families 
to  set  aside  any  sum  with  the  positive  assurance  that  it  will  purchase  all  needed  medical 
care. 

Medical  costs  which  are  too  high  for  many  families  do  not  necessarily  mean  high 
incomes  for  physicians,  although  the  average  net  income  of  private  practitioners  in  1929 
was  $5,300  a  year,  one-third  had  incomes  of  less  than  $2,5  00.  Forty-seven  thousand 
doctors  earn  no  more  than  $50  a  week.  In  1929  18  per  cent  of  American  physicians  en- 
joyed an  income  of  $1,5  00  a  year.  Under  the  depression  this  percentage  has  undoubtedly 
increased.  The  total  income  of  the  70,000  practitioners  was  less  than  that  received  by 
the  30,000  specialists.  Forty  per  cent  of  the  incomes  go  into  overhead,  which  adds  to 
the  patient's  cost  without  financial  return  to  the  doctor.  Many  doctors  have  no  well-to- 
do  patients,  in  which  case  the  cost  of  free  care  is  an  unjustifiable  burden  on  the  doctor. 

Voluntary  hospitals  are  suffering  similarly  from  inadequate  income.  They  are  ex- 
pected to  be  self-supporting,  yet  are  required  to  keep  modernized  without  raising  charges, 
which  are  already  as  high  or  higher  than  the  people  can  pay.  The  demand  for  free  work 
increases,  as  income  from  philanthropy  and  community  funds  becomes  more  and  more  ex- 
duced.  Hospitals,  even  more  than  doctors,  find  it  impossible  to  pass  on  to  wealthy 
patients  the  cost  of  the  free  work  done.  Expenses  cannot  be  reduced  appreciably  with- 
out impairment  of  service. 

It  has  been  found  that  through  efficient  and  economical  organization,  all  needed  med- 
ical care  of  the  kind  purchased  individually  could  be  provided  at  costs  of  $20  to  $40 
per  capita  per  annum.  This  includes  physicians,  dentists,  and  other  personnel,  and  the 
provision  of  hospitalization,  laboratory  service,  x-ray,  drugs,  eye  glasses,  appliances,  and 
other  items.  Low  income  families,  however,  cannot  pay  even  $20  to  $40  per  capita.  A 
family  of  five  with  an  income  of  $1,500  would  have  to  spend  $150  of  that  for  such 
service.  The  fact  remains,  however,  that  $30  is  well  within  the  collective  resources  of 
the  country.  The  problem,  then,  is  to  find  some  method  of  drawing  on  the  combined 
resources  of  the  population. 

The  foregoing  findings  are  enough  to  suggest  that  present  conditions  are  by  no  means 
ideal,  and  that  sweeping  changes  are  imperative.  The  Committee,  of  course,  realized  that 
a  satisfactory  medical  service  for  all  the  people  must  come  by  a  process  of  evolution.  To 
this  end,  five  recommendations  were  offered  in  their  report. 


26  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

First,  "the  Committee  recommends  that  medical  service,  both  preventive  and  thera- 
peutic, should  be  furnished  largely  by  organized  groups  of  physicians,  dentists,  nurses, 
pharmacists,  and  other  associated  personnel.  Such  groups  should  be  organized,  preferably 
around  a  hospital,  for  rendering  complete  office,  home,  and  hospital  care.  The  form  of 
organization  should  encourage  the  maintenance  of  high  standards  and  the  development 
or  preservation  of  a  personal  relation  between  patient  and  physician." 

The  keynote  of  this  first  recommendation  is  organization,  which  is  believed  to  be  the 
means  of  overcoming  the  chief  difficulties  in  medical  practice,  namely,  the  lack  of  co- 
ordination between  practitioners  and  specialist,  the  isolation  of  some  practitioners  from 
,helpful  contact,  the  lack  of  supervision  and  control  over  the  quality  of  work,  the  en- 
forced idleness  of  doctors  without  patients,  the  difficulty  patients  have  in  choosing  quali- 
fied physicians  and  the  duplication  of  overhead  cost  in  private  practice.  In  such  an  or- 
ganized group,  it  would  be  understood  that  each  professional  person  would  be  responsible 
to  the  group  for  the  quality  of  his  work,  rather,  than  as  now,  solely  to  himself. 

In  this  first  and  largest  recommendation  the  Committee  sees  as  an  ultimate  objective  a 
far-reaching  health  service  of  which  existing  hospitals  become  home  bases,  or  community 
medical  centers.  The  center  would  provide  a  general  hospital,  an  out-patient  depart- 
ment, a  pharmacy,  offices  for  doctors,  dentist,  technicians,  and  subsidiary  personnel  and 
headquarters  for  nurses.  All  diagnostic  and  therapeutic  equipment  would  be  available. 
Physicians  would  see  patients  in  their  homes,  in  the  offices  at  the  center  and  in  the  hos- 
pital. Home  nursing  would  be  available  on  visit,  part  time  or  full  time  basis.  Even  a 
housekeeping  service  would  be  available.  Convalescents  from  the  center  would  be  farmed 
out,  if  desirable,  to  rural  sub-centers.  All  appliances,  dressings  and  ambulance  service 
would  be  a  part  of  the  group. 

Such  an  organization  might  work  under  various  kinds  of  administrative  control.  A 
general  board,  representative  of  the  community,  would  direct  general  policies  and  assume 
financial  responsibility,  but  professional  aspects  would  be  under  the  professional  personnel 
of  the  center.  Remuneration  would  be  on  a  salary  basis,  or  by  a  division  of  receipts. 
Specialists  might  serve  several  centers  on  monthly  retainer  fees,  but  whatever  the  method, 
compensation  should  take  account  of  one's  competence  and  responsibilities. 

The  service  would  extend  from  the  one  or  more  urban  centers  to  sub-centers  in  out- 
lying areas.  These  affiliated  branches  would  differ  according  to  local  requirements,  but 
whatever  their  size,  whether  represented  by  a  single  practitioner  or  a  small  hospital,  their 
linkage  to  the  main  center  would  be  an  assurance  of  adequate  care  for  the  people  of  the 
community.  Throughout  the  entire  scheme,  the  general  practitioner  would  be  returned 
to  his  rightful  place  and  the  specialist  properly  related  to  his  profession. 

Second,  mindful  of  the  striking  inadequacy,  "The  Committee  recommended  the  ex- 
tension of  all  public  health  services,  whether  provided  by  governmental  or  non-govern- 
mental agencies,  so  that  they  will  be  available  to  the  entire  population  according  to  its 
needs.  Primarily  this  extension  requires  increased  financial  support  for  official  health  de- 
partments already  existing." 

Third,  since  the  cost  of  medical  care  falls  very  unevenly  upon  different,  and  indeed, 
upon  the  same  families  in  any  one  year,  and  are  entirely  unpredictable,  and  since  the 
majority  of  the  population  have  incomes  too  low  to  provide  sufficient  care,  "the  Com- 
mittee recommends  that  the  cost  of  medical  care  be  placed  on  a  group  payment  basis, 
through  the  use  of  insurance,  through  the  use  of  taxation,  or  through  the  use  of  both 
these  methods.  This  is  not  meant  to  preclude  the  continuation  of  medical  service 
provided  on  an  individual  fee  basis  for  those  who  prefer  the  present  method." 

The  Committee  recognized  that  the  methods  of  utilizing  the  principle  are  numerous, 
varying  with  the  type  of  community,  the  social  and  economic  groups  to  be  served,  and 
the   scope   of   medical    service    to    be   provided.      Among    possible   plans    are    Voluntary 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  27 

Cooperative  Health  Insurance,  Legally  Required  Health  Insurance  for  low  income 
groups,  aid  by  local  governments  for  health  insurance,  salaried  or  subsidized  physicians 
in  rural  areas,  state  and  federal  aid,  and  a  number  of  other  supplementary  or  temporary 
plans. 

Not  one  of  the  foregoing  is  an  untried  experiment.  All  have  been  extensively 
tested.  The  Committee  studied  them  in  operation,  but  preferred  voluntary  to  required 
measures  for  the  time  being  at  least,  though  recognizing  that  voluntary  insurance  will 
never  cover  those  who  most  need  its  protection.  Since  a  perfect  or  near  perfect  plan 
must  come  through  evolution,  the  voluntary  scheme  offers  a  point  of  origin.  Upon  what- 
ever basis,  however,  health  insurance  is  offered,  it  could  probably  be  provided  within 
the  limits  of  $1.50  to  $3.00  per  adult  wage  earner  per  month,  with  somewhat  lower 
rates  for  dependents. 

Fourth,  the  principal  defect  in  present  day  provision  of  medical  service  being  the 
lack  of  coordination,  which  means  that  some  communities  have  an  over-supply  of  facil- 
ities and  personnel  while  others  have  an  under-supply,  "the  Committee  recommends  that 
the  study,  evaluation,  and  coordination  of  medical  service  be  considered  important 
functions  for  every  state  and  local  community,  that  agencies  be  formed  to  exercise 
these  functions,  and  that  the  coordination  of  rural  with  urban  services  receive  special 
attention." 

Fifth,  and  finally,  the  Committee  recommended  basic  educational  improvement  which 
will  emphasize  the  social  aspects  of  medical  practice. 

Perhaps  the  best  test  of  the  foregoing  reommendations  is  the  report  of  the  minority. 
Agreeing  in  general  with  the  majority  on  the  three  recommendations,  the  minority 
took  strenuous  objections  to  the  other  two,  which  dealt  with  the  organization  of  Medical 
Services  and  Group  payment  for  medical  services. 

That  physicians  must  be  conservative  is  conceded  but  the  doctor  must  recognize  as 
Secretary  Wilbur  remarked,  "that  whether  he  likes  it  or  not  something  is  going  to  be 
done.     It  is  better  to  have  it  done  by  him  than  to  him." 

Certain  facts  are  inescapable.  Doctors  are  clamoring  for  patients,  hospitals  are  be- 
coming insolvent,  and  people  throughout  the  nation  are  suffering  from  the  lack  of 
care.  Something  inhibits  these  three  from  getting  together,  and  this  barrier  seems  to  be 
largely  economic.  Much  of  the  progress  made  in  the  past  has  been  in  those  fields  in 
which  knowledge,  technique,  equipment,  and  personnel  have  been  organized  under 
community  leadership.  Perhaps  the  advances  yet  to  come  will  result  also  from  this  same 
sponsorship  as  the  people  learn  that  the  greatest  reward  will  come  from  the  expendi- 
ture of  more  of  their  income  on  services  and  less  on  commodities.  At  any  rate  the 
present,  though  it  could  be  worse,  must  certainly  yield  to  something  more  effective. 
In  view  of  its  conservative  personnel  the  Committee  was  bold,  but  there  is  no  enacting 
clause  in  the  report.  For  the  first  time,  however,  a  scientific  basis  was  afforded  those 
who  wish  to  attack  the  perplexing  problem  of  adequate  medical  care.  That  the  report 
has  educational  value  and  is  well  worth  the  million  dollars  spent  for  it  there  can  be 
no  doubt. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  report  of  the  Committee  demonstrated  very  clearly 
that  we  have  an  over-supply  of  idle  doctors,  hospitals  that  are  empty  and  millions  of 
people  in  dire  need  of  medical  care,  with  the  economic  state  so  broken  down  that  it 
could  not  be  provided  to  the  people  who  needed  it,  this  report  has  gathered  dust  for 
nearly  three  years  and  only  recently  has  again  assumed  an  importance  in  administrative 
affairs.  This  has  been  brought  about  through  the  creation  by  the  present  administra- 
tion of  a  group  known  as  the  Economic  Security  Committee,  which  has  for  its  purpose 
the  creation  of  security  for  all  the  people  of  this  country.  In  its  broad  program  it 
includes  provision  for  old  age  pensions,   for  unemployment  insurance   and   for  medical 


28  T  he     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

care  and  hospital  care  during  times  of  illness.  Although  a  bill  designed  to  take  care 
of  these  hazards  and  contingencies  of  life  has  been  introduced  into  Congress,  that 
provision  that  deals  with  medical  care  has,  for  the  time  being,  been  omitted  from  con- 
sideration. At  this  time,  however,  there  exists  a  committee  of  American  physicians 
and  other  interested  parties,  who  are  charged  with  the  responsibility  of  drawing  up 
plans  whereby  medical  and  hospital  care  can  be  furnished  to  those  people  of  the  United 
States  in  the  low  income  groups.  It  is  appreciated,  of  course,  that  the  high  income 
groups  (over  $10,000)  have  no  problems  of  importance  in  the  question  of  medical 
care.  Likewise,  the  problem  is  not  acute  in  the  income  group  of  five  to  ten  thousand 
dollars  per  year,  since  they  also  budget  an  adequate  amount  for  this  purpose.  It  may 
be  stated,  that  the  chief  problem  is  provision  of  adequate  care  for  those  families  with 
an  income  of  less  than  three  thousand  dollars  per  year  and  especially  those  in  the  lower 
bracket  of  that  classification.  Families  with  incomes  of  less  than  twelve  hundred 
dollars  per  year  are  considered  to  be  in  the  charity  class  so  far  as  medical  care  is  con- 
cerned. It  is  this  group  that  is  admitted  to  various  city,  county  and  state  institutions 
without  cost.  As  a  working  basis,  then,  President  Roosevelt's  committee  has  concerned 
itself  mainly  with  medical  care  for  those  people  who  fall  below  the  two  thousand  yearly 
income  group. 

It  is  an  old  truth  in  medicine  that  the  high  income  groups  and  the  absolute  indigent 
receive  adequate  medical  care.  Those  who  have  suffered  most  from  the  lack  of  it 
include  the  people  who  have  incomes  of  less  than  two  thousand  dollars  a  year.  It  may  be 
stated  that  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  people  of  Georgia  fall  within  this  group. 

This  administration  has  utilized  the  findings  of  President  Hoover's  Committee  in  a 
study  of  this  question,  especially  those  findings  dealing  with  inadequate  medical  service. 
However,  they  have  not  seen  fit  to  follow  the  recommendation  of  that  Committee, 
especially  as  concerns  the  plan  for  setting  up  so-called  community  medical  centers. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  propose  to  recommend  a  system  of  insurance  whereby  people 
of  the  low  income  group  can  pay  a  small  monthly  premium,  which  premium  would  be 
supplemented  by  state  funds,  this  to  be  further  supplemented  by  aid  from  the  Federal 
Government.  If  possible  it  is  the  desire  that  medical  insurance  premiums  should  be 
paid,  probably,  from  four  sources:  First,  from  the  beneficiary  himself;  second,  from  his 
employer;  third,  from  state  funds,  and  fourth,  from  federal  funds.  Thus,  this  system 
would  be  a  combination  of  voluntary  insurance  and  that  supplied  by  taxation.  It  is 
at  once  evident  that  the  institution  of  such  radical  changes  will  necessitate  the  setting 
up  of  a  widespread  and  extensive  bureaucracy  which  may  or  may  not  be  under  the 
guidance  of  the  medical  profession. 

It  seems  to  be  further  contemplated  by  the  Committee  that  in  case  of  illness  of  the 
wage-earning  member  of  the  family  that  unemployment  cash  benefits  be  provided  along 
with  medical  and  hospital  care.  The  Committee  has  recommended  further  that  maternity 
cases  be  placed  in  a  special  category  and  that  the  Government  subsidize  this  type  of 
medical  practice  in  a  special  way,  such  as  unemployment  benefits  if  the  mother  is  a 
wage-earner,  for  medical  care  during  the  period  of  confinement,  and  even  a  special  cash 
benefit  for  the  purchase  of  medical  supplies  and  materials. 

The  Committee  has  further  proposed  that  the  Federal  Government  subsidize  all 
public  health  activities  with  increased  funds  so  that  the  State  of  Georgia,  for  example, 
instead  of  receiving  about  sixty  or  seventy  thousand  dollars  for  this  purpose,  would 
receive  practically  a  million  dollars  per  year. 

The  committee  has  repeatedly  emphasized  that  such  a  plan  of  insurance  would  be  a 
voluntary  one  and  that  certainly  most  of  the  people  would  not  be  subject  to  compulsion 
relative  to  joining  the  insurance  program.  It  is  their  desire  to  provide  the  people  of 
low  income  an  opportunity  to  budget  for  illness  and  disability  just  as  they  now  have 


The     Agnes     Scott    Alumnae    Quarterly  29 

an  opportunity  to  budget  for  old  age  and  for  death.  It  is  recognized,  however,  that  a 
certain  section  of  the  population  should  have  a  compulsory  form  of  insurance,  partic- 
ularly those  who  are  engaged  in  industry.  This  would  not  be  a  radical  departure  from 
methods  already  in  existence  since  many  states  in  the  union  now  have  compulsory 
insurance  against  industrial  disability  with  the  premiums  paid  by  employers  and  em- 
ployees, and  in  some  instances  supplemented  by  state  funds.  This  plan,  known  generally 
as  the  Workmen's  Compensation  Act,  has  in  general  proved  quite  successful.  It  may 
be  briefly  stated  that  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  Federal  Government  to  enlarge  this  same 
scheme  so  as  to  apply  to  all  classes  of  people  in  the  low  income  group. 

The  Committee  has  not  yet  made  specific  recommendations  concerning  the  charity, 
or  indigent  class,  and  this,  of  course,  still  remains  a  problem.  However,  there  is 
reasonable  assurance  that  this  class  of  people  too  will  be  included  in  the  final  recom- 
mendations. 

It  may  be  stated,  in  summarizing  the  efforts  of  the  present  administration,  that  this 
represents  merely  an  attempt  on  its  part  to  provide  for  the  American  people  security 
against  the  catastrophe  of  illness  and  disability  and  should  be  applicable  not  only  to  the 
wage-earner,  but  to  other  members  of  the  family  as  well.  When  a  wage-earner  becomes 
ill  or  disabled  he  surfers  two  economic  blows:  first,  the  problem  of  obtaining  medical 
care;  and  secondly,  the  loss  of  income  during  the  period.  He  is  further  unfortunate 
that  this  particular  hazard  of  life  occurs  at  unexpected  and  unpredictable  times. 

There  are  many  plans  of  insurance  against  illness  which  have  been  conducted  by 
various  corporations  that  have  proved  to  be  successful.  For  example,  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  of  Louisiana  insures  its  workers  and  all  members  of  their  families  for 
five  dollars  a  month.  This  entitles  the  beneficiary  to  all  forms  of  medical,  dental  and 
hospital  care,  including  preventive  medicine.  Thus,  for  a  budget  of  sixty  dollars  a 
year  an  employee  can  insure  himself  and  his  family  against  all  types  of  illness  and 
disability. 

Under  the  proposed  system  it  would  be  possible  for  any  insured  person  to  call  the 
physician  of  his  choice.  He  could  also  select  the  hospital  of  his  choice,  receive 
adequate  treatment  and  the  physician  and  hospital  would  be  paid  by  the  central  disbursing 
office. 

The  average  income  of  physicians  is  quite  low.  They  have  been  bearing  the  burden 
of  the  indigent  and  low  income  groups,  as  was  recently  pointed  out  by  President  Roose- 
velt, who  stated  that  it  was  unfair  to  expect  the  medical  profession  to  continue  to  bear 
the  burden  for  the  treatment  and  care  of  our  indigent  people.  It  goes  without  saying, 
of  course,  that  the  scale  of  pay  would  probably  be  much  lower  then  under  the  private 
fee  system,  but  it  would  mean  that  the  physician  would  be  assured  of  collecting  his 
bills  and  certainly  be  guaranteed  a  more  stabilized  income  than  under  the  present  system. 
Furthermore,  such  a  plan  would  not  take  away  from  him  the  best  part  of  his  practice, 
since  only  the  low  income  group  would  be  included  and  he  still,  of  course,  would  be 
able  to  practice  for  his  well-to-do  patients. 

It  seems  probable  that  under  these  conditions  the  physician  might  reduce  the  size 
of  fees  that  are  charged  in  the  upper  class  by  reason  of  an  adequate  return  from  the 
lower  groups.  The  old  plan  then  of  the  rich  paying  for  the  poor  would,  in  a  sense, 
be  abolished.  It  seems  reasonable,  furthermore,  should  this  plan  become  effective,  that 
the  hospitals  would  no  longer  suffer  from  the  trying  financial  strain  under  which  they 
usually  operate.  For  example,  the  Emory  University  Hospital  in  DeKalb  County, 
Georgia,  has  the  building,  equipment,  plant  and  the  personnel  to  care  for  2  50  to  300 
patients,  yet  the  average  number  of  patients  in  that  institution  for  the  last  four  years 
has  been  less  than  100.  Entire  floors  of  the  hospital  have  been  closed  because  of  a 
lack  of  patients.     The  people  of  DeKalb  County  can  not  fill  the  hospital  because  of  the 


30  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

lack  of  money  to  pay  their  bills.  In  order  for  the  institution  to  continue  to  operate 
with  a  balanced  budget  it  is  necessary  therefore  that  they  charge  the  paying  patient  a 
rate  of  five,  six  or  seven  dollars  per  day.  If  its  entire  2  50  beds  were  occupied  at  three 
dollars  per  day  it  would  be  in  a  better  financial  position  than  under  the  present  system 
and,  no  doubt,  it  would  mean  that  the  institution  could  reduce  its  rates  because  of  an 
assured  income  from  the  lower  economic  group. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who  oppose  this  form  of  medical  care  because 
of  the  dangers  of  increased  taxation  for  its  support. 

The  organized  profession  of  medicine  in  the  United  States,  as  represented  by  the 
American  Medical  Association,  has  opposed  it  because  of  the  fear  of  interference  with 
that  personal  relationship  between  physician  and  patient,  and  because  of  the  danger 
of  the  medical  profession's  being  placed  under  the  control  and  domination  of  a  far-flung 
bureaucracy  of  politicians.  It  may  be  stated,  however,  that  since  the  medical  profes- 
sion has  been  unable  to  meet  the  problem  of  medical  care  in  its  own  way  that  the  time 
probably  has  arisen  when  business  people  must  assume  control  of  this  function.  The 
entire  question,  of  course,  is  one  that  is  eminently  debatable.  It  is  agreed  by  practically 
all  students  of  the  problem  that  medicine  has  fallen  down  in  the  function  of  giving 
adequate  medical  care  to  the  American  people.  The  fact  that  it  has  fallen  down, 
however,  is  not  due  to  its  own  shortcomings.  The  failure  of  certain  sections  of  our 
population  to  receive  adequate  care  when  it  is  to  be  had  just  around  the  corner,  is  no 
different  from  the  wholesale  destruction  of  cattle  in  the  West  when  coal  miners  in 
West  Virginia  were  starving.  It  is  no  different  from  the  surplus  of  wool,  cotton  and 
other  commodities  when  there  are  those  who  do  not  have  adequate  clothing.  It  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  profession  of  medicine  itself,  but  more  likely  a  part  of  the  general 
economic  breakdown,  and  the  effort  of  the  present  administration  in  attempting  to  make 
available  these  services  to  the  people  represents  only  a  part  of  the  general  program 
of  protecting  the  people  against  all  of  the  economic  hazards  of  life.  This  question  has 
been  presented  here  in  its  unsolved  and  embryonic  form  and  is  presented  as  one  of  the 
current  problems  of  present-day  government. 

The  entire  situation  is  one  of  the  major  problems  of  the  present  administration,  and 
represents  only  a  small  section  of  the  total  economic  ills  that  the  government  has 
proposed  to  alleviate  or  cure.  In  the  future,  medical  practice  may  become  a  govern- 
ment function,  as  is  seen  now  in  varying  degree  in  forty-three  countries,  where  it 
seems  generally  satisfactory.  At  least,  so  far  as  world  government  is  concerned,  it  is 
nothing  new. 


WITH  OUR  FIELD  ALUMNAE  SECRETARY 

Elinor  Hamilton,  '34,  in  trips  this  winter  and  spring,  has  represented  Agnes  Scott 
in  many  fields.  In  March  a  trip  into  Tennessee  claimed  her  attention.  In  April  Wash- 
ington, D.  C,  and  Philadelphia,  and  New  York  City  were  the  territories  covered. 


SUGGESTED  READING 

Reading  for  alumnae  suggested  by  Dr.  Emma  May  Laney  and  Dr.  Catherine  Tor- 
rance of  our  Agnes  Scott  faculty  includes  the  following:  Twentieth  Century  Forces  in 
European  Literature,  by  Agnes  Camilla  Hansan;  The  Novel  in  English,  by  G.  C.  Knight; 
Discovering  Poetry,  by  Elizabeth  Drew. 


CAPS  AND  GOWNS 

If  you  have  a  cap  and  academic  gown  in  good  condition,  the  Alumnae  Association 
could  put  it  to  good  use  and  will  extend  in  exchange  a  membership  in  the  Association. 


CHANGING  STANDARDS  IN  LITERATURE 

Dr.  George  P.  Hayes 

Professor  of  English  at  Agnes  Scott  College 

As  we  look  about  us  at  the  literature  of  today,  we  are  probably  puzzled,  at  first 
view,  by  its  variety  of  aspects  and  characteristics.  When  we  try  to  analyze,  as  I  have 
been  asked  to  do,  the  psychological  changes  that  underlie  this  literature,  we  search  for  a 
clue  not  in  terms  of  individuals  but  of  changing  ideas,  changing  standards.  To  under- 
stand these — to  understand  the  currents  of  thoughts  in  which  we  live — we  must  see 
them  against  the  perspective  of  the  past.  In  the  time  at  my  disposal  I  can  take  up 
only  a  few  phases  of  this  subject,  and  even  so  I  cannot  properly  qualify  my  statements, 
which  may  therefore  appear  unduly  dogmatic. 

The  standards  of  any  age  are  best  studied  in  its  conception  of  the  nature  of  man. 
To  understand  present-day  attitudes  we  must  glance  first  at  the  older  views  of  human 
nature. 

The  Christian  church  has  generally  held  to  the  dualistic  conception  of  man,  the  con- 
ception that  man  has  two  natures  or  principles — a  higher  and  a  lower,  a  good  and  an 
evil.  It  is  man's  duty  to  cleave  to  the  one  and  abhor  the  other.  Essentially  the  same 
conception  was  held  by  Aristotle,  who  explains  that  man  has  certain  passions  that  require 
to  be  controlled  by  the  reason  if  he  is  to  arrive  at  happiness,  the  goal  of  life.  Thus 
according  to  both  the  Christian  and  the  Aristotelian,  the  primary  problem  for  the 
individual  is  an  inner  one  and  involves  a  struggle  for  self-mastery.  The  man  who 
succeeds  in  this  struggle  wins  for  himself  an  inner  freedom  which  adversities  of  fortune 
in  the  outer  world  cannot  touch.  Jesus  said,  "I  have  overcome  the  world,"  and  Socrates 
exclaimed  at  his  trial:  "Know  of  a  certainty  that  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man 
either  in  life  or  death."  This  inner  freedom  once  achieved,  man  thereby  gains  a  measure 
of  outer  freedom — of  freedom  of  action  in  the  world  about  him — which  he  could  not 
have  so  long  as  he  was  the  slave  of  his  own  passions. 

Man's  well-being  depends,  then,  on  the  cultivation  of  his  better  self — on  the  cultiva- 
tion, that  is,  of  the  reason,  the  ethical  will,  spirit,  conscience.  These  are  not  merely 
the  highest  elements  in  man:  they  are  also  the  elements  that  distinguish  him  from  nature 
(by  which  I  mean  the  physical  and  animal  universe).  To  cultivate  them,  then,  is  to 
become  more  human;  to  slur  them  over  and  to  cultivate  instead  the  physical  and  animal 
side  of  man  is  to  become  less  human  and  more  like  nature.  Consequently  both  the 
Aristotelian  and  the  Christian  emphasized  these  humanizing  elements  and  distinguished 
clearly  between  man  and  nature. 

It  is  on  the  basis  of  this  conception  of  man  as  a  being  possessed  of  reason  and  will 
and  thus  capable  of  acting,  as  it  is  his  duty  to  do,  in  accord  with  the  moral  law,  that 
the  literature  of  the  Classical  and  Christian  traditions  at  their  best  is  generally  based. 
The  characters  in  Greek  or  French  Classical  tragedy  or  in  the  older  English  literature 
may  not  live  up  to  this  ethical  standard,  but  when  they  vary  from  it  they  do  so  to  their 
own  harm  while  the  standard  still  abides  and  is  indeed  reinforced  by  the  ruin  consequent 
on  deviation  from  it.  Literature  written  from  this  viewpoint  strengthens  the  ethical 
nature  of  the  reader  and  elevates  mind  and  spirit. 

About  a  century  and  a  half  ago  the  dualistic  conception  of  man,  on  which  the 
Classical  and  Christian  traditions  were  based,  was  supplanted,  with  the  coming  of  the 
Romanticists,  by  a  monistic  view  of  human  nature.  According  to  the  new  attitude, 
man  is  innately  good  (not  good  and  evil)  and  consequently  does  not  require  control. 
He  should,  and  indeed  must,  yield  freely  to  his  desires  and  impulses  for  he  has  within 
no  power  (and  he  has  no  need)  to  check  them.  Self-control  is  neither  possible  nor 
desirable.  The  evil  in  the  world  is  due  to  forces  outside  the  individual,  especially  to  the 
laws,  institutions,  and  conventions  of  civilization.     Remove  these  unhappy  bonds  and  the 


32  The    Agnes    Scott    Alumnae    Quarterly 

natural  goodness  of  man  will  assert  itself  and  the  Golden  Age  of  universal  peace  and 
happiness  will  be  ushered  in. 

Thus  the  very  conception  of  conscience  as  a  check  on  our  lower  selves  and  the  con- 
ception of  will  as  controlling  the  appetites  have  no  place  in  the  Romantic  philosophy. 
In  addition,  the  Romanticists  disparaged  the  intellect  (calling  it,  with  Wordsworth, 
"the  false  secondary  power  that  multiplies  distinctions")  and  exalted  emotion,  so  that 
their  ideal  became  "the  beautiful  soul,"  a  being  whose  will  and  intellect  count  for  little 
and  whose  superiority  consists  in  the  exquisiteness  of  his  emotional  responses.  Lacking 
the  guidance  of  will  and  intellect  and  the  standard  of  moral  and  spiritual  values  estab- 
lished by  the  conscience,  "the  beautiful  soul"  becomes  an  integral  part  of  nature.  By 
nature,  in  interplay  with  his  emotions  and  imagination,  his  actions  are  determined. 

This  naturalistic  determinism  of  the  Romanticists  was  reinforced  by  Science.  Thus 
Huxley  refused  to  draw  a  line  between  man  and  nature,  maintaining  on  the  contrary  that 
"The  universe  is  one  and  the  same  throughout"  and  that  men  are  "conscious  automata." 

Out  of  this  naturalistic  determinism  of  the  Romanticists  and  the  scientists  came  the 
naturalistic  literature  represented,  in  the  novel,  by  Zola  in  France,  Arnold  Bennett  in 
England,  and  Theodore  Dreiser  in  America.  In  other  words,  "the  beautiful  soul"  of 
the  Romanticists  is  twin  sister  to  the  commonplace  soul,  the  feeble  soul,  the  ugly 
soul,  the  brutal  soul  (so  to  speak)  of  the  Naturalists  because  both  derive  from  a  deter- 
ministic philosophy  and  a  depreciation,  or  even  at  times  a  virtual  denial,  of  the  life  of 
intellect,  will  and  conscience  in  the  individual. 

It  is  in  terms  of  this  naturalistic  movement  that  we  are  to  explain  Ernest  Heming- 
way's hard  and  callous  heroes  who  live  in  a  world  of  brute  force;  Hardy's  peasants  who 
are  caught  in  the  meshes  of  environment  and  chance,  against  which  they  cannot  genu- 
inely struggle;  the  characters  in  the  problem  novels  of  Wells  and  (to  considerable 
extent)  Galsworthy;  Theodore  Dreiser's  cow-like  women  and  bear-like  men  whose  actions 
are  determined  by  the  "chemisms"  (to  use  his  term)  of  which  they  are  composed; 
Eugene  O'Neill's  weak  and  neurotic  dramatis  persotiae  in  the  grip  of  complexes  which 
frustrate  normal  action;  H.  L.  Mencken's  glorification  of  the  Nietzschean  doctrine  that 
the  physically  strong  shall  and  ought  to  crush  the  weak;  and  many  more,  such  as  Strind- 
berg  and  Ibsen  in  drama,  Max  Eastman  and  Edmund  Wilson  in  criticism,  and  Sherwood 
Anderson  and  John  Dos  Passos  in  the  novel.  It  has  been  said  that  Greek  literature 
is  preemiently  moral  and  humane.  In  losing  the  very  conception  of  morality,  the  nat- 
uralistic literature  fails  to  be  genuinely  humane.  For  that  reason  it  presents  life  as 
futile  and  meaningless,  and  leaves  the  reader  in  a  mood  of  pessimism  and  even  despair. 

I  would  not  be  misunderstood.  I  am  not  contending  that  all  characters  should  be 
created  acording  to  one  pattern.  Portray  all  the  types  that  exist,  but  set  them  against 
a  background,  as  Shakespeare  does,  of  normal  humanity,  so  that  the  reader  may  not  con- 
fuse the  normal  with  the  abnormal,  the  brute  with  man. 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  coonsidering  the  consequences  of  the  romantic  rejec- 
tion of  the  dualistic  conception  of  man  and  the  Romantic  merging  of  man  in  nature, 
with  the  resulting  depreciation  or  denial  of  the  traditional  emphasis  on  the  ethical  will, 
conscience  and  intellect.  We  turn  now  to  a  second  phase  of  the  Romantic  movement 
which  will  explain  two  groups  of  contemporary  writers:  the  "cult  of  unintelligibility" 
to  which  Gertrude  Stein,  E.  E.  Cummings  and  T.  S.  Eliot  may  be  said  to  belong,  and 
the  cult  of  the  morbid,  the  abnormal  and  the  perverted,  seen  in  such  authors  as  Robin- 
son Jeffers,  William  Faulkner,  Eugene  O'Neill  and  Marcel  Proust.  To  understand  the 
psychology  underlying  these  groups  we  must  go  back  first  to  Aristotle's  theory  of  prob- 
ability set  forth  in  the  Poetics. 

Aristotle  says  that  the  task  of  the  poet  is  not  to  copy  the  surfaces  of  life  indis- 
criminately,  like  the  realist.      Some   people  are  more   representative  of  humanity,   more 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  33 

typical,  than  others;  some  events  are  more  probable  than  others  according  to  the  normal 
sequence  of  cause  and  effect.  The  task  of  the  true  poet  is,  with  the  aid  of  the  imagina- 
tion, to  discern,  amid  the  flux  of  people  and  events  that  constitute  life,  the  typical,  the 
probable,  the  normal,  and  to  represent  these,  for  his  work  will  then  have  greater  sig- 
nificance and  will  achieve  what  Dr.  Johnson  called  "the  grandeur  of  generality."  Such 
creative  work  embodies  the  permanent  and  the  universal  underlying  the  endlessly 
changing  manifestations  of  life — the  One  within  the  Many — and  so  comes  as  close  to 
absolute  reality  as  is  permitted  to  human  beings.  It  gives  what  Goethe  calls  the  illusion 
of  a  higher  reality. 

The  writer  who  has  a  clear  perception  of  this  higher  reality  has,  then,  a  model  or 
standard  whereby,  when  his  imagination  creates  characters  in  action,  his  reason  may  test 
these  creations  to  determine  to  what  extent  they  approximate  to  that  reality.  Thus 
his  reason  disciplines  and  limits  his  imagination  to  the  representation  of  the  typical  and 
the  probable.  This  is  the  classical  theory  of  imitation  analyzed  by  Aristotle  and  achieved 
creatively  by  Homer,  Sophocles  and  others.  It  helps  to  explain  the  high,  philosophic 
character  of  Greek  literature*  and  the  enlargement  of  mind  which  we  experience  in 
reading  it. 

This  conception  of  the  co-operation  of  imagination  and  reason  was  lost  with  the 
coming  of  Christianity,  for  the  Christians  maintained  that  the  imagination  deals  with 
mere  appearances  and  so  is  the  source  of  lies  and  illusion,  whereas  divine  revelation 
alone  gives  reality.  At  the  Renaissance,  the  reason  was  made  the  supreme  guide  of  life, 
as  for  example  by  Descartes,  and  the  imagination  disparaged.  But  the  imagination  cannot, 
in  an  age  freeing  itself  from  authority,  be  safely  disregarded  for  long  because,  in  the 
words  of  Pascal,  "the  imagination  disposes  of  everything."  That  is  to  say,  the  imagina- 
tion is  "the  true  driving  power  in  human  nature."  Consequently,  the  Romanticists, 
reacting  against  the  somewhat  unimaginative  rationalism  of  the  preceding  age,  overthrew 
judgment  and  reason  altogether  in  favor  of  the  untrammeled,  uncontrolled  indulgence 
of  the  imagination.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  reason  should  test  the  creations  of  the 
imagination  with  regard  to  their  probability  and  representativeness  if  those  creations  are 
to  have  any  general  significance  and  truth.  In  overthrowing  reason  and  the  ethical 
will,  the  Romanticists  removed  the  controlling,  disciplining  influence  on  imagination, 
consequently  probability  and  representativeness  disappear,  and  we  have  the  Romantic 
glorification  of  the  improbable,  the  strange,  the  wonderful,  the  unique,  the  exotic,  the 
eccentric  and  the  monstrous.  This  tendency  still  continues  today  and  explains  the  con- 
temporary cult  of  unintelligibility.  In  proportion  as  these  writers  such  as  Gertrude 
Stein  and  E.  E.  Cummings  get  away  from  what  is  typical  and  normal  in  human  experi- 
ence to  what  is  remote,  they  become  unintelligible.  They  cease  to  communicate  with 
others;  they  talk  to  themselves  alone. 

The  Romantic  cult  of  the  strange,  wonderful  and  improbable  likewise  leads  to  modern 
studies  in  morbid,  abnormal,  and  perverted  people  and,  generally  speaking,  to  studies 
in  the  disintegration  of  personality.  Poe  and  Dostoievsky  were  early  exponents  of  this 
phase  of  the  movement;  Faulkner,  Proust,  Jeffers  and  O'Neill  continue  it  today.  The 
characters  in  O'Neill's  plays,  especially  the  later  plays,  are  not  so  much  human  beings 
as  walking  embodiments  of  Freudian  complexes.  Such,  too,  was  Mr.  Barrett  in  The 
Barrets  of  Wimpole  Street.  These  characters  bombard  the  nerves;  they  do  not  touch 
or  elevate  the  heart.  No  one  denies  that  they  may  exist;  the  criticism  is  that  they  have 
not  enough  in  common  with  us  to  stir  our  sympathies  deeply. 

There  is  this  difference  between  the  Romantic  glorification  of  the  wonderful  and 
the  improbable  and  its  modern  equivalent,  the  cult  of  the  abnormal  and  the  morbid:  the 
Romanticists,  with  their  Gothic  castles,  melodramatic  characters,  Ancient  Mariners, 
demons  and  corsairs,  did  not  after  all  take  their  day-dreaming  very  seriously.  They  were 
merely  amusing  themselves  and  their  readers.     But  in  the  tales  of  Poe,  the  sordid  novels 


34  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

of  Faulkner,  and  the  poems  of  Robinson  Jeffers  the  Romantic  dream  has,  as  Alan  Thomp- 
son notes,  turned  into  a  nightmare  which  appalls  and  sickens  us.  The  very  extravagance 
of  works  like  these  would  seem  to  indicate  that  we  are  near  the  end  of  the  Romantic- 
Naturalistic  movement.  It  is  high  time  that  we  return  to  a  representation  of  the  central 
elements  in  human  experience  rather  than  the  peripheral  eccentricities.  In  place  of  the 
unrestrained  imagination  we  need  a  quality  of  imagination  disciplined  and  controlled  with 
reference  to  the  universal  in  character  and  the  probable  in  action. 

There  remains  time  to  take  up  but  one  more  phase  of  the  Romantic  movement  in 
relation  to  contemporary  literature — namely,  the  Romantic  cult  of  spontaneity,  which 
explains  those  writers  such  as  James  Joyce,  Proust,  and  Eugene  O'Neill  who  attempt  to 
record  the  flow  of  sensation  and  thought,  conscious  and  subconscious,  passing  through 
the  mind — the  so-called  stream  of  consciousness  school. 

Now  there  are  two  type  of  spontaneity,  as  Irving  Babbitt  has  pointed  out,  and  the 
difference  between  them  is  all  important.  One  type,  which  we  may  call  the  lower  spon- 
taneity, is  achieved  by  abolishing  intellect  and  the  ethical  will;  the  higher  spontaneity  is 
obtained  without  sacrificing  intellect  or  will — by  rising  above  the  rational  level  rather 
than  by  sinking  below  it.  An  illustration  drawn  from  Milton  will  make  clear  the 
character  of  the  higher  spontaneity.  Milton  prepared  for  writing  his  great  epic  by  long 
study  of  the  classics  and  the  Bible.  Having  assimilated  the  highest  culture  of  the  past, 
he  turned  for  inspiration  to  God,  praying  that  his  passions  might  be  stilled,  his  mind 
be  purged  of  the  mean  and  trivial,  and  his  spirit  be  illuminated  from  above.  In  other 
words,  out  of  a  full  cultivation  of  mind  and  will  and  a  looking  above  himself  for 
guidance  came  the  spontaneity  which  found  expression  in  our  great  English  epic. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Romantic  spontaneity,  like  the  Romantic  imagination,  was 
achieved  at  the  sacrifice  of  mind  and  will.  The  denial  of  the  life  of  the  conscious 
mind  became  with  the  Romanticists  the  cult  of  the  unconscious,  seen  admirably  in 
Wordsworth's  exaltation  of  children  above  adults  as  a  source  of  wisdom,  and  in  Carlyle's 
preference  for  the  Spartans  over  the  Athenians  and  primitive,  semi-barbaric  people  over 
civilized  men.  The  Romantic  denial  of  the  ethical  will,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken, 
combined  with  the  cult  of  the  unconscious  or  the  subconscious  (as  we  call  it  today), 
results  in  the  modern  form  of  spontaneity  and  explains  the  writer  we  are  considering. 
Marcel  Proust,  for  example,  got  the  materials  for  his  novels  by  holding  in  abeyance  will 
and  conscious  intellectual  activity — that  is,  by  sinking  into  a  semi-conscious  state. 
James  Joyce  records  the  flux  of  subconscious  as  well  as  conscious  impressions  without 
bringing  into  play  the  selective  and  controlling  power  of  the  will.  Eugene  O'Neill  in 
Strati ge  Interlude  and  William  Faulkner  in  The  Sound  and  the  Fury  (a  study  in  idiocy) 
are  doing  something  similar.  Now  note  some  of  the  consequences  of  the  lower  spon- 
taneity in  which  the  individual  abdicates  will  and  intellect:  since  the  will  does  not  serve 
as  a  controlling  power  on  the  flow  of  consciousness,  the  psychological  result  that  is 
recorded  in  the  pages  of  these  writers  is  an  inner  chaos,  for  which  the  mere  outer  form 
of  Ulysses,  for  example,  by  no  means  compensates  with  those  readers  who  would  define 
the  artistic  process  as  the  transformation  of  chaos  into  a  cosmos.  Let  the  natural, 
undisciplined  self  find  full  expression,  and  what  emerges  more  particularly  is  the  sensual 
self,  the  sexual  impulse,  either  in  normal  or  perverted  forms.  (Proust,  Sherwood  Ander- 
son, Ulysses).  Let  the  will  abdicate  its  controlling  functions,  and  what  Poe  calls  the 
Imp  of  the  Perverse  takes  possession:  we  are  irresistibly  drawn  to  do  wrong  and  soon  we 
are  immersed  in  all  forms  of  evil  that  end  in  the  disintegration  of  personality — a  com- 
mon subject  of  literature  from  Poe  and  Hawthorne  to  the  present.  Here  we  should 
place  the  school  of  Satanism  seen  especially  in  the  French  Decadents  from  Baudelaire  to 
Huysmans.  Beyond  this  complete  denial  of  all  true  art,  morality,  and  civilization  it 
would  be  hard  to  go. 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  35 

The  consequences  of  the  higher  spontaneity,  on  the  other  hand,  are  quite  different. 
I  have  just  mentioned  the  Satanism  of  the  Decadents.  In  Paradise  Lost  we  have  a  sort 
of  Satanism,  Satan  being  a  principal  character,  but  Milton's  attitude  toward  and  treat- 
ment of  Satanism  is  radically  different  from  that  of  the  satanic  school  deriving  from 
Poe.  In  the  first  place,  the  imagination  of  the  modern  satanist  is  obviously  fascinated 
by  his  satanism  and  sympathizes  with  it,  whereas  Milton  sets  the  Adversary  of  Man 
against  a  moral  background  which  condemns  satanism.  This  difference  is  all  important 
with  regard  to  the  ethical  effect  of  the  respective  works  on  the  reader.  In  the  second 
place,  although  Milton,  like  O'Neill  and  Jeffers,  treats  of  the  abnormal  father-daughter 
relationship — for  Satan  conceives  an  incestuous  passion  for  his  daughter  Sin,  and  their 
offspring  is  Death — ,  nevertheless  in  Milton  this  abnormality  is  ascribed  to  a  demon 
rather  than  to  man,  and  is  kept  strictly  subordinate  to  the  larger  normal  elements  of 
the  poem  as  a  whole,  whereas  O'Neill  and  Jeffers  fill  the  world  they  create  with  abnormal 
beings,  so  that  they  make  abnormality  seem  normal.  In  the  third  place,  Milton  repre- 
sents man  as  originally  noble,  bringing  on  himself  endless  suffering  for  his  sins,  but 
possessing  an  inner  paradise  which  is  always  his  if  he  cultivates  his  higher  nature  and 
which  no  outer  misfortune  can  deprive  him  of.  There  is  none  of  this  in  the  modern 
school.  Finally,  through  the  active  exercise  of  the  will,  which  controls  the  suggestions 
of  the  lower  instinctive  self,  Milton  has  created  not  a  chaos  like  Ulysses  but  an  ordered 
harmonious  universe — like  the  Spirit  of  God  moving  on  the  face  of  the  waters,  giving 
form  to  all  things.  The  result  of  this  higher  spontaneity  which  looks  up  to  what  is 
above  man — the  divine — rather  than  to  what  is  below  him — the  brute-like — is  the 
noblest  monument  of  English  poetry. 

We  have  been  studying  some  phases  of  the  Romantic-Naturalistic  psychology;  in 
closing  let  us  view  its  consequences  as  a  whole.  The  main  trend  of  nineteenth  century 
thought  was  optimistic.  The  enormous  advance  made  by  science  led  people  into  a  blind 
belief  that  man  progresses  inevitably  from  age  to  age.  But  a  few  thinkers  saw  the 
deeper,  ominous  implications  of  the  thought  and  psychology  of  the  period.  Emerson 
said, 

"Things  are  in  the  saddle 
And  ride  mankind." 

Arnold,  deeply  troubled,  turned  for  guidance  to  the  classical  and  Christian  traditions, 
which  he  called  Hellenism  and  Hebraism.  Cardinal  Newman,  rejecting  the  age  and  its 
works,  sought  salvation  in  the  church.  And  Carlyle,  like  Sainte-Beuve,  saw  with  a 
prophet's  eye  the  confusion  coming  and  called  for  a  dictator.  His  cry  has  been  heard: 
we  have  dictators  in  plenty.  They  are  the  inevitable  result  of  the  psychology  we  have 
been  studying.  Once  you  remove  from  within  the  breast  of  the  individual  the  principle 
of  control  which  rightly  belongs  there,  presiding  like  a  king  over  the  appetites,  you 
precipitate  anarchy,  first  in  the  individual  himself,  then  in  society.  Following  anarchy 
comes  the  dictator,  who  subjects  society  to  a  rigid  outer  control.  Having  no  inner 
check,  the  individual  must  submit  to  an  outer  check.  He  has  lost  his  outer  freedom 
because  he  first  lost  his  inner  freedom — that  is,  the  spiritual  freedom  of  the  man  who  is 
master  of  himself.  The  society  that  turns  for  its  principle  of  control  from  the  breast 
of  the  individual  to  rigid  external  regulation  takes  a  step  backward  toward  barbarism. 
In  the  words  of  Milton,  true  humanist  and  Christian: 

"Reason  in  man  obscur'd,  or  not  obey'd, 

Immediately  inordinate  desires 

And  upstart  Passions  catch  the  Government 

From  Reason,  and  to  servitude  reduce 

Man  till  then  free.   Therefore  since  hee  permits 

Within  himself  unworthie  Powers  to  reign 


36  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

Over  free  Reason,  God  in  judgment  just 
Subjects  him  from  without  to  violent  Lords; 
Who  oft  as  undeservedly  enthrall 
His  outward  freedom:     Tyrannie  must  be, 
Though  to  the  Tyrant  thereby  no  excuse. 
Yet  som  times  Nations  will  decline  so  low 
From  vertue,  which  is  reason,  that  no  wrong, 
But  Justice,  and  some  fatal  curse  annex t 
Deprives  them  of  their  liber  tie, 
Their  inward  lost." 

I  submit  that  the  man  who  understood  so  well  the  fundamental  principles  of  human 
nature  and  conduct  that  his  words  written  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago  should  apply 
precisely  to  the  trend  of  civilization  today  and  should  pass  thereon  the  appropriate  moral 
judgment — notably  in  that  grim  line, 

"Tyrannie  must  be, 
Though  to  the  Tyrant  thereby  no  excuse" — 
such  a  one  is  not  merely  a  poet  but  seer  and  prophet  as  well. 

Such  are  the  fruits  of  the  Romantic-Naturalistic  tradition.  Its  bankruptcy  need  by 
no  means  lead  us  to  despair  about  the  future:  it  is  premature,  to  say  the  least,  to  write 
the  epitaph  for  the  race  of  man.  Let  us  rather  turn  to  the  truths  of  the  inner  life  as 
preserved  for  us  in  the  wisdom  of  the  past  and  as  testified  to  by  the  experience  of  us  all. 
Let  us  begin  by  recognizing  as  a  fact  of  consciousness  that  each  one  has  a  sense  of 
responsibility  for  his  own  deeds  and  the  freedom  of  will  to  act  according  to  a  moral  code 
by  submitting  his  lower  self  to  the  control  of  his  higher.  Here  we  have  a  form  of 
dualism  at  the  very  heart  of  human  experience.  By  virtue  of  the  ethical  will  and  of 
the  mind — man's  distinctive  attributes — man  is  at  least  partially  separated  from  and 
placed  above  nature.  The  aim  of  the  nineteenth  century,  says  Stuart  Sherman,  was  to 
place  man  in  nature;  the  task  of  the  twentieth  is  to  get  him  out  again.  If  man  as  man  is 
not  a  passive  victim  in  nature's  hands  but  on  the  contrary  is  capable  at  his  best  of 
purposive  action  in  accordance  with  the  moral  law,  then  to  restore  this  conception  to 
our  thinking  would  be  to  give  to  our  literature  a  central  significance  and  a  truth  to  life 
which  it  lacks  at  present  and  greatly  needs. 

In  addition  to  this,  we  should  cease  to  depreciate  the  mind  and  that  important 
product  of  the  mind  which  we  call  culture.  Let  us  not,  with  Carlyle,  Whitman  and 
others,  disparage  culture,  which  Dante  recognized  to  be  a  potent  aid  to  genius  and 
which  should  make  us  all  more  humane. 

Finally,  let  us  recover  again  if  we  can  that  cooperation  of  the  reason  with  the  imag- 
ination which  enables  man  to  represent  the  enduring  that  lies  behind  the  flux.  It  is  this 
type  of  imaginative  reason  which  Joubert  calls  the  eye  of  the  soul.  By  means  of  it  we 
should  be  able  to  perceive  the  permanent  human  values  on  which  the  good  life,  as  well 
as  great  literature,  ultimately  depends. 

Whenever  a  new  literary  movement  is  initiated,  it  is  customary  for  its  advocates  to 
revert  for  models  to  a  former  age.  To  get  a  really  adequate  conception  of  man  in  pur- 
posive action  set  against  an  ethical  background  and  portrayed  by  the  imaginative  reason 
we  should  go  back  to  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  the  supreme  English  embodiments  of  the 
classical  and  Christian  traditions. 

Without  turning  to  the  past,  however,  we  can  see,  if  we  look  about  us  today,  a  few 
creative  writers  who,  in  certain  respects,  represent  the  viewpoint  I  am  advocating. 
Robert  Bridges  in  A  Testament  of  Beauty  has  evolved  a  Christian  philosophy  which  con- 
tains important  elements  from  Aristotle  and  Plato.     Robert  Frost  places  man  in  a  more 

{Continued  on  Page  44) 


MASTERPIECE 

Clara  Elizabeth  (Whips)   Dunn,  '16 

Chairman  of  the  Curriculum  Committee 
We  would  little  expect  to  find  in  John  Ruskin  inspiration  for  a  program  of  parent 
education  and  still  he,  better  than  numerous  more  modern  writers,  puts  the  matter 
neatly  into  one  sentence:  "When  love  and  skill  work  together,  expect  a  masterpiece." 
We  have  long  been  accustomed  to  the  idea  that  it  takes  more  than  an  eye  for  color  to 
paint  a  picture,  more  than  a  mere  dramatic  instinct  to  produce  great  plays,  more  than 
an  ear  for  music  to  compose  an  intricate  symphony,  more  than  a  desire  to  serve 
humanity  to  preach  a  scholarly  sermon  or  perform  a  delicate  operation.  Training  and 
technic  are  taken  for  granted  in  all  the  arts  and  professions — a  high  degree  of  skill  com- 
bined with  an  overpowering  urge  being  necessary  to  create  a  masterpiece.  Yet  for 
generations  mothers  have  been  attempting  to  solve  the  most  delicate  and  difficult  and 
involved  of  all  problems — that  of  bringing  to  efficient  and  serviceable  adulthood  the 
human  race — by  a  haphazard  combination  of  emotion  and  tradition. 

"When  we  are  young  we  ask  for  bread, 
And  all  the  stones  they  give  instead 
We  carry  with  us  day  by  day 
Along  the  way. 

"At  last  by  grief  grown  wiser  far 
We  know  our  stones  for  what  they  are; 
But,  borne  so  many  an  aching  year, 
We  hold  them  dear. 

"So  when  our  children  ask  for  truth, 

Perhaps  for  shame,  perhaps  for  ruth, 

We  give,  to  make  them  supermen, 
The  stones  again." 
True  with  just  this  love  alone  many  splendid  results  have  been  produced.  We  are 
thinking  of  the  old  mountain  woman  who  said  she  had  raised  fourteen  and  never  failed 
to  make  a  "crap."  But  she  had  of  necessity  acquired  a  high  degree  of  unconscious  technic 
— a  God-given  bestowal  comparable  only  to  rare  supreme  genius  along  other  lines — 
prodigies  born  with  the  capacity  to  mix  colors  or  create  melodies.  But  consider  the 
enormous  number  of  failures  mothers  have  made  throughout  the  ages.  By  failures  we 
do  not  mean  the  comparatively  small  (although  numerically  unbelievably  large)  minority 
of  pitiful  wrecks  of  humanity  who  fill  our  jails  and  insane  asylums  and  reformatories — 
the  suicides,  the  criminally  insane,  the  alcoholics,  the  dope  fiends,  etc.,  but  that  far 
larger  number  suffering  from  less  spectacular  but  just  as  real  disorders — the  neurotics, 
the  physical  weaklings,  the  anti-social,  the  emotionally  unstable,  the  savagely  acquisitive, 
the  vocational  misfits,  the  agnostics,  the  mentally  retarded,  those  suffering  from  inferior- 
ity or  fear  complexes,  the  inordinately  jealous,  the  maladjusted.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to 
look  this  appalling  list  straight  in  the  face  and  call  these  unfortunates  by  their  right 
name — mother-failures.  They  are  failures  rarely  of  mother-love  but  often  of  mother- 
skill. 

However,  Madame  Montressori,  intrepid  pioneer  of  modern  child  education,  claims 
that  the  quality  and  quantity  of  mother  love  are  often  taken  for  granted.  Too  often 
we  mistake  for  love  a  mixture  of  sentimentality,  emotionalism,  and  family  or  personal 
pride.  "What  we  need  to  do,"  she  points  out,  "is  to  change  fundamentally  our  attitude 
toward  the  child  and  love  him  with  a  love  that  sees  not  solely  his  faults  but  his  virtues; 
and  which  instead  of  condemning  him  encourages  him  and  sets  him  free."  Sympathy  and 
good  intentions  are  not  enough.  Love  is  dynamic.  It  creates,  it  vitalizes,  it  accom- 
plishes. Certainly  it  took  a  dynamic  love  to  produce  The  Ring  of  the  Nibelungenlied,  or 
Macbeth,  or  U Allegro,  or  The  Immaculate  Conception,  or  The  Unfinished  Symphony. 


38  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

A  dynamic  love  alone  can  produce  in  our  children  those  qualities  we  most  desire  for 
them:  the  faith  of  an  Abraham,  the  intellectuality  of  Plato,  the  peresistence  of  Columbus, 
the  triumphant  humanity  of  Lincoln,  the  manly  charm  of  Robert  E.  Lee. 

C.  V.  Hillyer,  beloved  practical  idealist,  said  once,  "All  mothers  dream  dreams. 
More  often  than  not,  however,  dreaming  is  as  far  as  the  matter  goes  whereas  only  effort 
will  make  her  dreams  come  true."  Effort,  we  add,  directed  by  conscious  skill,  and 
advanced  with  the  precision  of  a  carefully  acquired  technic. 

We  are  coming  slowly  to  analyze  our  needs.  About  a  decade  or  so  ago  when  the 
skills  of  the  profession  of  motherhood  first  came  to  be  defined  they  concerned  them- 
selves mainly  with  the  physical  aspects  of  child  training  and  for  this  reason  perhaps  the 
average  college  woman  often  refused  to  consider  them  with  any  real  enthusiasm  while 
conceding  their  fundamental  necessity.  After  all  how  to  sterilize  a  bottle,  or  prepare  a 
food  formula,  or  just  how  many  pounds  Johnny  should  weigh  at  the  age  of  four  years, 
five  months  and  three  weeks  is  rather  a  mechanical  process  and  once  conquered  these 
details  of  physical  care  tend  to  become  mere  routine  with  little  to  compel  the  continued 
interest  or  challenge  the  powers  of  the  college  woman  accustomed  as  she  is  to  laboratory 
methods.  But  when  to  the  mere  physical  we  add  the  necessity  for  moral,  spiritual,  intel- 
lectual, and  aesthetic  development  we  begin  to  realize  the  overwhelming  nature  of  our 
task  and  our  own  inadequacy  and  unpreparedness.  Someone  has  said  that  the  modern 
movement  for  parent  education  has  risen  out  of  the  discovery  of  the  mother  as  an 
educator.  "The  parent  has  been  viewed  historically  as  an  owner,  economically  as  a  pro- 
vider, politically  as  a  guardian,  and  religiously  as  a  guide."  And  now  modern  thinking 
has  found  out  that  she  is  an  educator.  Not  that  she  wants  to  be!  She  sends  young 
Tommie  to  school  for  his  education.  But  unfortunately  we  have  discovered  that  young 
Tommie  learns  far  more  in  the  nineteen  hours  he  spends  out  of  school  than  in  the  five 
brief  ones  he  spends  within  school  walls.  We  send  all  of  Tommie  to  school  and  all  of 
Tommie  comes  home.  We  cannot  turn  off  the  learning  process  as  you  would  cut  off 
the  water  faucet.  So  we  need  to  know  how  to  help  him  establish  life  habits,  how  to 
set  up  ideals,  how  to  develop  the  best  in  his  personality,  how  to  assist  him  with  problems 
of  group  adjustment,  how  to  train  him  in  the  proper  use  of  leisure,  how  to  guide  him 
in  the  choice  of  an  appropriate  vocation,  how  to  lead  him  into  an  adequate  personal  reli- 
gion, how  to  build  his  character,  how  to  help  him  grow  up.  It  is  a  long  way  from  the 
baby  bottle  and  the  weight  chart. 

Here  is  need  for  a  science  with  as  real  a  content  as  biology,  or  chemistry,  or  sociology, 
or  economics,  and  with  a  mission  as  overwhelmingly  important  as  any  of  them.  Here  is 
need  for  an  art  demanding  technic  just  as  music,  or  poetry,  or  ^painting,  and  with  as 
great  possibilities  for  the  creation  of  that  which  is  lovely,  and  even  more  worthy  of  the 
world's  deepest  respect  and  highest  acclaim. 

It  does  not,  however,  comprise  an  entirely  new  body  of  unrelated  facts,  but  rather 
it  is  a  blending  or  pratical  application  of  a  number  of  other  arts  and  sciences.  The 
medical  profession  has  established  the  essential  physical  basis.  The  field  of  psychology 
has  furnished  knowledge  of  the  child's  mental  and  emotional  processes  which  education 
has  devised  ways  and  means  of  developing  while  science,  sociology,  and  religion  all  have 
played  a  part.  Lillian  Gilbreth's  valuable  work  has  shown  us  that  even  the  principles  of 
industrial  engineering  applied  to  the  home  are  of  great  value  as  a  coordinating  and  ad- 
justing factor.  Practically  every  branch  of  modern  thinking  has  some  necessary  con- 
tribution to  make.  But  the  burden  of  being  the  connecting  link  between  this  volume 
of  material  and  the  mother  rests  upon  parent  education. 

The  material  alone  is  not  adequate  without  a  concentrating  force  and  particularized 
application.  For  example,  as  great  as  the  contribution  of  child  psychology  has  been 
in  this  work,   Stanwood  Cobb  expresses  its  limitations:      "Fundamentally   the  adequate 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  39 

understanding  of  the  child  is  a  spiritual  process.  There  are  many  highly  trained  experts 
in  child  psychology  to  whom  I  would  not  entrust  children  for  training.  They  have 
become  too  much  crystallized  in  the  doctrines  of  child  psychology.  They  are  technicians 
rather  than  artists."  It  is  because  child  training  demands  an  artist  that  we  need  to 
acquire  the  complicated  and  highly  specialized  technic  of  motherhood. 

Of  course,  the  time  to  acquire  any  skill  properly  is  long  before  the  actual  need  for  it 
arises.  The  busy  columnist  of  a  daily  paper  intent  on  producing  his  bit  would  be 
seriously  handicapped  if  he  had  to  learn  to  spell  the  words  he  was  using,  or  was  com- 
pelled to  refer  constantly  to  his  volume  of  elementary  rhetoric.  And  yet  many  an 
earnest  young  mother  waits  until  Jane  has  a  temper  tantrum  to  study  the  most  funda- 
mental laws  of  conduct  control,  or  until  negativism  has  developed  in  young  Billy  to 
find  out  what  to  do  about  it.  Surely  such  a  policy  can  only  meet,  and  has  always  met, 
with  failure. 

However,  for  those  of  us  in  this  generation  who  are  concerned  right  now  with 
Sue's  sullenness,  or  John's  adolescent  instability,  the  best  substitute  we  can  offer  for 
a  carefully  acquired  technique  is  to  thumb  the  cook  book  with  one  hand  while  we  mix 
the  biscuits  with  the  other,  and  this  is  just  what  the  parent  education  movement, 
advanced  by  the  national  P.-T.  A.,  and  aided  by  the  government  and  numerous  other 
agencies,  is  trying  to  do.  But  its  best  efforts  strike  one  as  futile,  erratic,  and  insufficient, 
not  only  because  of  a  scarcity  of  trained,  well-qualified  leadership,  but  also  because  of 
the  general  lethargy  on  the  part  of  mothers  in  general,  and  college  mothers  in  par- 
ticular. Then,  too,  there  has  been  in  the  past  a  dearth  of  any  real  scientific  but  simple 
and  practical  literature.  Perhaps  this  has  been  because  mothers  have  been  the  very  last 
group  of  people  to  learn  the  value  of  keeping  records  and  tabulating  results.  However, 
every  day  sees  real  progress  made  along  this  line.  Such  writers  as  Sidone  Gruenberg, 
G.  C.  Myers,  Angelo  Patri,  Ada  Hart  Artlett,  W.  E.  Blatz,  and  many  others  are  pro- 
ducing a  wealth  of  pamphlets,  articles,  and  books  whose  only  aim  is  to  give  the  mothers 
now  in  the  firing  line  some  elementary  instructions  in  military  maneuires.  Let  us 
hope  the  next  generation  will  not  send  its  soldiers  to  battle  so  completely  unprepared. 

The  bigness  of  the  task  and  the  permanency  of  the  result  should  appeal  particularly 
to  the  college  woman.  Where  is  there  to  be  found  a  thinking  person  of  mature  years 
who  does  not  long  to  project  herself,  her  personality,  into  the  future?  To  this  end 
many  paint,  and  write,  and  compose.     To  this  end  many  put  their  faith 

"in  brave,  bright  words 
That  fashioned  are  in  pain 
That  wring  the  colors  from  the  earth, 
The  silver  from  the  rain." 
and  others 

"in  strong  sure  hands 
That  mold  in  clay  or  stone 
The  dream  that  feeds  upon  each  soul." 
And  still  we  know  that  those  desiring  immortality  would  do  better   to  select   ma- 
terials more  lasting  than  granite,  more  enduring,  more  permanent: 
"But  beat  the  stone  to  blowing  dust 
Stifle  the  golden  song! 
Such  immortality  as  this 
Will  last  a  brief  day  long! 
"Let  your  heart  be  workman  then, 
Your  fashioning  be  fleet! 
A  little  face  and  little  hands 
And  little  wayward  feet!" 


40  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

— a  living  spirit  ready  to  respond  to  your  touch  with  melodies  of  divine  sweetness,  a 
soul  immortal  ready  to  be  molded  into  eternal  patterns  of  sublime  beauty. 

If  the  recent  depression  has  taught  us  anything  at  all  it  is  the  difficulty  of  leaving 
our  children  any  sort  of  permanent  possessions.  Money?  What  was  sounder  than  Rus- 
sian government  securities  before  the  war?  The  French,  notorious  for  their  ability  to 
find  safety  for  their  money,  staked  theirs  there.  What  was  sounder,  what  was  more 
permanent  than  Germany  before  the  war — great  in  military  powers,  great  in  industry, 
famous  for  her  teachings  of  thrift?  Certainly  the  English  pound  was  worth  its  face 
value  everywhere.  Yet  any  parent  who  placed  his  faith  in  leaving  his  child  Russian 
bonds  or  German  marks  or  English  pounds  would  find  that  he  had  really  not  provided 
for  his  future  at  all.  From  money  alone  we  cannot  model  a  masterpiece  of  manhood. 
Social  position?  The  New  York  Blue  Book  has  omitted  from  its  recent  edition  scores 
of  names  thought  fixed  there  by  a  past  generation. 

"Change  and  decay  is  all  around  I  see."  How  often  during  the  last  few  years  these 
words  of  the  old  song  have  rung  in  our  hearts  with  a  new  and  more  poignantly  bitter 
meaning!  Where  then  can  we  seek  for  lasting  gifts  to  leave  our  children?  Does  nothing 
remain?  The  same  old  hymn  hastens  to  give  us  the  answer:  "O  Thou  who  changest 
not!"  The  Lord  Jehovah — from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  and  out  of  those  qualities 
which  are  God-like  can  a  permanent  masterpiece  be  built.  Love  never  fails;  hope  springs 
eternal;  by  faith  new  miracles  are  done.  And  the  mother  who  has  given  to  a  human  soul 
character  bulwarks,  God-like  qualities,  has  created  a  masterpiece  which  will  outlast  the 
pyramids  and  be  remembered  when  music,  poetry  and  painting  are  no  more. 

This  glory  of  creation  gives  to  motherhood  that  quality  of  supreme  concentration 
and  joy  in  accomplishment  found  only  in  the  genius  and  the  little  child  to  whom  work 
and  play  are  one.  Michelangelo,  laboring  day  and  night  for  four  years — high  on  a 
scaffold  much  of  the  time — to  complete  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  would  have 
had  neither  time  nor  inclination  to  adopt  a  fixed  scale  of  hours  nor  to  join  an  artists' 
union,  even  if  there  had  been  one  handy.  And  four-year-old  Mary,  building  her  block 
house  or  cooking  her  dolly's  "mud-pie  dinner,"  is  equally  intent.  If  motherhood  is  to  rank 
with  the  arts,  it  must  share  with  Mary  and  Michelanigelo  this  utter  disregard  of  time, 
seasonableness  and  self-interest,  this  complete  absorbtion  in  joyful  creation. 

Of  course,  delight  in  doing  anything  comes  only  after  the  mastery  of  some  of  the 
skills.  Mary  would  not  enjoy  being  required  to  make  a  blue  print  for  a  skyscraper  since 
she  has  never  heard  of  the  first  principles  of  architectural  drawing,  and  Michelangelo 
would  probably  have  been  bored  if  he  had  had  to  express  his  ideas  by  means  of  a  com- 
plicated fugue,  without  adequate  mastery  of  the  technic  of  musical  composition.  As 
mothers  acquire  the  skill  necessary  to  guide  the  behavior,  and  form  the  ideals,  and 
develop  the  personalities  of  their  children,  motherhood  will  become  an  art,  and  mothers 
will  take  their  places  beside  the  greatest  of  all  creative  genuises. 

And  best  of  all  enthusiastic  interest  will  replace  the  boredom  with  which  many 
mothers,  especially  college-bred  mothers,  have  been  apt  to  regard  the  task  of  bringing  to 
worthwhile  adulthood  the  next  generation.  To  create  because  of  dynamic  love  and 
with  paramount  skill — herein  lies  that  which  links  us  to  the  Divine  whose  function  all 
creation  is. 

What  then  is  this  masterpiece  which  every  artist-mother  longs  to  create  with  all  her 
love  and  skill?  A  boy  or  girl  whose  ideals  are  established,  whose  body  radiates  the  joy 
of  health,  whose  mind  is  well-trained,  whose  habits  are  the  best,  whose  spirit  is  alive  to 
all  that  is  good  and  beautiful,  whose  affections  include  both  God  and  man,  whose  soul 
is  aflame  with  a  desire  to  servf  his  country,  his  day,  humanity  and  his  Maker.  What 
drama  so  compelling,  what  picture  so  glorious,  what  statue  so  lovely,  what  masterpiece 
in  all  the  world  is  so  worthwhile  as  this? 


THROUGH  LITERATURE  TO  LIFE 

Mrs.  J.  O.  Martin 

Atlanta,  Georgia 

The  late  Dr.  Marvin  Parks  once  said,  "The  tragedy  of  life  is  that  any  child  is 
allowed  to  fail."  What  can  prevent  this  better  than  an  educated  motherhood?  Good 
reading  matter  is  a  constant  source  of  helpfulness  in  this  respect. 

Literature  is  a  definite  means  to  the  extension  of  the  capacity  for  living.  Through 
vicarious  experience  only  can  life  be  expanded  indefinitely.  The  power  to  give  this  ex- 
perience is  peculiar  to  the  arts,  of  which  literature  is  a  ranking  one. 

Considering  the  vast  opportunities  open  to  children  in  realms  of  literature,  the  hidden, 
soul-stirring  and  uplifting  works  of  recorded  thought,  educated  mothers  attempt  to 
place  within  the  grasp  of  their  children  those  things  that  lead  to  finer  and  nobler 
development. 

What  could  represent  the  power  of  literature  more  than: 

"He  ate  and  drank  the  precious  words 

His  spirit  grew  robust 
He  knew  no  more,  that  he  was  poor 

Nor  that  his  frame  was  dust. 
He  danced  along  the  dingy  way 

And  his  bequest  of  wings 
Was  but  a  book.     What  liberty 

A  loosened  spirit  brings." 

Angelo  Patri,  one  of  America's  authorities  on  childhood  education,  says:  "It  seems 
to  me  that  a  boy  or  girl  can  have  no  greater,  richer  gift  than  a  love  of  reading.  Once 
they  can  read  and  enjoy  their  readings,  they  have  the  whole  treasure  of  life  within 
their  reach."  He  believes  that  every  normal  child  will  educate  himself,  if  opportunities  are 
made  available.  These  opportunities  can  be  made  available  only  by  those  who  have  a 
deep  understanding  of  young  hopes  and  desires  and  potentialities.  Only  can  a  person 
with  ideals  encourage  them,  with  vital  habits  instill  them,  with  a  knowledge  of  litera- 
ture give  to  their  own  that  Open  Sesame  to  fact  and  fancy,  to  life  as  revealed  in  litera- 
ture. 

A  child's  eager  interest  in  books  is  not  accidental.  It  has  been  stimulated  by  prac- 
tical knowledge  of  what  he  likes  to  read  and  a  keen  and  critical  knowledge  of  what 
should  be  read. 

After  the  first  flexible  animal,  train,  and  boat  picture  books,  Mother  Goose  with  its 
repetitions  definitely  appeals  to  the  child.  Care  is  given  by  knowing  parents  to  the  selec- 
tion of  those  editions  which  are  illustrated  by  the  best  artists.  Even  then  they  should 
be  examined  carefully  before  being  given  to  the  child  and  any  illustrations  which  may 
tend  to  frighten,  stimulate  bad  dreams,  or  make  him  conscious  of  the  dark,  should  be 
destroyed.  As  he  becomes  familiar  with  this,  his  first  book,  we  would  not  have  him 
meet  with  grotesque,  startling  figures  which  might  impress  fear  upon  his  mind.  These 
first  impressions  are  lasting  ones,  and  infinite  care  is  imperative  lest  there  be  scars  left  on 
a  little  nervous  system. 

Soon,  the  little  one's  interests  begin  to  enlarge,  and  he  finds  Mother  Goose  inadequate. 
A  wise  parent  has  acquainted  her  child  at  the  age  of  four  or  five  with  a  score  of  classics. 
He  now  lives  in  the  Land  of  Make-Believe  and  enjoys  Goldilocks,  Briar  Rosebud,  and 
other  old,  old  tales  retold.  When  fairy  stories  are  begun  in  earnest,  a  marvelous  world  of 
wonder  is  opened.  New  doors  are  swung  ajar  when  these  first  sunny  stories  of  little 
plots  that  end  happily  are  given  him. 


42  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

At  this  time  poems  are  very  welcome  for  the  definite  appeal  that  rhythm  makes.  It 
is  remarkable  how  readily  the  child  memorizes.  The  swing  of  the  words,  the  inter- 
mittent jingle  of  similar  sounds  stimulate  his  attention.  Natural  interest  is  utilized  to 
its  fullest  extent  in  short,  suitable  poems.  Poems  form  the  best  type  of  bed-time 
stories,  for  the  mind  is  very  receptive  in  the  darkened  room.  Many  of  the  gems  of 
Eugene  Field,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  Longfellow,  and  Christina  Rosetti  are  splendidly 
adapted  to  this  purpose.  Selections  from  Poem  of  Childhood  and  A  Child's  Garden 
of  Verses  will  enable  the  small  boy  or  girl  to 

"Go  to  bed  ivith  backward  looks 
At  my  dear  land  of  story-books." 

All  children  love  stories  and  that 

"...  pause  in  the  day's  occupation 
That  is  known  as  the  Chidren's  Hour" 

should  be  a  sacred  one  consecrated  to  inspire  and  delight  the  youngsters  gathered  about 
the  fireside  ready  to  be  transported  to  a  mystical  land  of  fairies  or  to  dwell  in  realms  of 
historic  fantasies.  The  story  is  universal  in  its  appeal.  On  school-room  walls  of  Japan 
and  age-old  China,  I  once  saw  water  color  illustrations  of  childhood  stories  similar  to 
our  own,  especially  do  I  recall  the  counterpart  of  our  Gingerbread  Boy. 

The  story  hour  should  be  a  definite  part  of  the  daily  program  of  the  home  where 
there  are  young  children. 

"You  may  have  tangible  wealth  untold 
Caskets  of  jewels  and  coffers  of  gold 
Richer  than  I  you  can  never  be 
I  had  someone  who  told  stories  to  me."    ■ 

"Wise  mothers  do  not  make  the  error  of  reading  to  their  children  when  they  should 
read  for  themselves.  Tests  innumberable  show  that  rapid  readers  are  accurate  ones  and 
only  by  practice  can  a  child  attain  speed  in  picking  up  an  "eye-full  of  words." 

Before  ten  years  of  age,  folk  tales  and  myths  are  eagerly  read.  Joel  Chandler  Harris, 
Rudyard  Kipling,  and  Hans  Anderson  have  preserved  works  most  instrumental  in 
character  building.  There  is  now  a  peculiar  delight  in  satisfying  a  characteristic  cheer- 
fulness, an  instinctive  carefulness  and  helpfulness  which  may  be  fostered  to  advantage. 
The  thirst  for  magical  beauty  is  satisfied  by  stories  of  magic,  of  ingenuity  by  guessing 
riddles,  of  love  of  out-of-doors  by  Indian  lore  and  animal  stories,  of  industry  by  creative 
stories.  A  well-equipped  mother  and  teacher  are  aware  of  the  ways  in  which  literature, 
in  its  manifold  phases,  responds  to  the  characteristics  of  the  child. 

Soon  comes  the  age  of  appreciating  something  surprising  and  different.  Wonder,  at 
this  time,  is  a  precious  possession,  and  the  principle  literary  equipment.  The  main  in- 
terest now  lies  in  thrilling  adventure  and  effusion  of  blood.  Stories  of  Pioneer  Life, 
Child  Life  in  Many  Lands,  Around  the  World,  Cape  and  Tree  Dwellers,  Alice  in  Won- 
derland, Siviss  Family  Robinson,  The  Young  Marooners,  Robinson  Crusoe,  Robin  Hood, 
Arabian  Nights,  The  Story  of  Mankind,  and  scores  of  others  are  immensely  enjoyed. 

The  tide  of  hero  worship  rises  to  its  heights  after  this  period.  Worthy  heroes  and 
fine  shadowy  and  mystical  ideals  in  the  epics  of  knighthood  furnish  excellent  food  for 
thought.  Stories  of  world  heroes,  great  Americans,  King  Arthur,  stories  from  the  Bible, 
The  Iliad,  The  Odyssey,  biography,  may,  with  many  others,  be  given  now. 

Before  leaving  junior  high  school,  our  children  must  have  some  others  that  have 
withstood  the  test  of  time,  living  to  the  present,  to  the  youth  of  today,  the  works  of 
immortal    masters.     What    childhood    associations    could    be    complete    without    David 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly  43 

Copperfield,  Oliver  Twist,  Little  Women,  the  autobiography,  Tales  from  Shakespeare, 
Les  Miserables  (abridged),  Ivanhoe,  Treasure  Island  and  the  rest  we  loved  and  cherished 
so,  as  children? 

Sometimes  such  books  as  Tom  Sawyer  and  Penrod  bridge  a  chasm  from  indifference 
to  genuine  interest. 

Ruskin  said,  "All  books  are  divisible  into  two  classes,  the  books  of  all  time  and  books 
of.  the  hour."  Because  this  is  a  new  world  and  different  from  the  one  we  knew  as 
children  we  must  do  more  than  provide  our  old  favorites.  The  best  of  the  new  books 
should  likewise  be  theirs. 

Again,  can  one  who  is  not  acquainted  with  literary  standards  judge?  College 
preparation  is  an  indisputable  source  of  helpfulness  in  this.  An  educated  mother  knows 
how  to  supplement  her  own  ideas  with  competent  sources  of  reference.  Standard 
libraries  and  literary  guilds  will  help  to  secure  the  newer  books  that  combine  fascinating 
contents  and  choice  diction  with  wholesome  human  values  and  facts  whose  accuracy  is 
not  questioned.  Among  the  newer  books  in  which  there  are  no  cheap,  super-thrilling 
unrealities  are  those  awarded  the  Newberry  medal:  Lofting,  The  Voyage  of  Dr. 
Doolittle;  Mukerji,  Gayneck,  the  Story  of  a  Pigeon;  James,  Smoky,  The  Cowhorse; 
Finber,  Tales  from  Silver  Lands;  Hawes,  The  Dusk  Frigate;  Chrismen,  Shen  of  the  Sea; 
Kelly,  The  Trumpeter  of  Krakow,  and  others. 

Any  books  recommended  by  the  staff  of  the  Junior  Literary  Guild  or  standard  libraries 
may  be  relied  upon  with  safety,  such  as  Forgotten  Gods,  Children's  Country,  Boy's 
Book  of  Salvage,  You  Make  Your  Own  Luck,  A  Daughter  of  the  Seine,  Circus  Mena- 
agerie,  The  Beckoning  Road,  The  Bastable  Children,  and  many  others  which  are  safe 
and  enjoyable. 

Periodicals  of  high  type  and  the  wise  use  of  newspapers  for  current  history,  in  order 
for  them  to  live  with  the  living,  are  urged  for  growing  children. 

One  thing  for  which  there  is  no  substitute  is  the  home  library.  Only  can  a  lover  of 
books  make  a  home  where  books  are  welcomed  with  delight  and  read  with  joy.  Children 
who  have  adequate  library  facilities  in  the  home  not  only  possess  a  far  better  under- 
standing of  literature,  but  they  manifest  a  greater  interest  in  books  throughout  their  lives. 
Around  his  own  fireside,  a  child  should  become  acquainted  with  the  masters.  With  the 
habit  of  reading  early  developed,  the  seeds  deeply  implanted,  there  need  be  no  anxiety 
as  to  the  continuance  of  this  practice.  With  little  expense,  the  home  library  may  be 
maintained  with  additions  made  at  intervals.  If,  in  later  year,  the  child  can  always 
associate  the  great  works  with  which  he  comes  in  contact,  with  his  earlier  readings, 
think  of  the  incomparable  value! 

A  child  has  increased  interest  in  books  if  he  is  allowed,  under  guidance,  to  take  part 
in  the  selections  for  his  own  bookshelves.     The  pride  of  ownership  is  valuable. 

We  have  recently  been  moved  by  the  artistic  interpretation  of  David  Copperfield 
on  the  screen.  I  wonder  if  little  Freddie  Bartholomew,  in  portraying  the  character  of 
young  David,  could  have  done  it  with  the  sympathetic  understanding,  delicate  feeling 
and  rare  diction  if  he  had  not  been  a  child  of  books. 

Who  can  measure  the  power  and  influence  of  good  books?  Who  can  guide  and  direct 
a  child's  literary  interests  better  than  his  mother,  if  she  is  a  book-conscious  mother? 
She  will  protect  him  from  pitfalls  and  dangers. 

Among  the  excavated  ruins  of  old  Pompeii  may  be  seen  the  casts  of  figures  as  they 
were  overwhelmed  by  the  molten  fire  that  so  disastrously  engulfed  them.  Near  the 
remains  of  a  terror-stricken  animal,  there  is  a  human  arm  around  the  body  of  a  little 
child.  On  this  graceful  arm  are  bracelets,  showing  it  to  be  that  of  a  woman — yea,  a 
mother  who  in  her  Gethsemane  hour  risked  her  all  to  save  her  child.  Such  a  motherhood- 


44  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 

The  aim  of  every  mother  is  to  protect  and  to  prepare  her  children  for  a  full  life,  for 
a  maturity  enriched  and  broadened  in  interests  and  in  sympathetic  understanding.  Can 
you  visualize  a  more  pathetic  figure  than  an  adult  circumscribed  by  a  wall  that  shuts 
out  the  past,  limits  the  present,  and  deadens  the  future — a  colorless  existence,  uninter- 
esting to  its  fellows,  and  deprived,  unfairly,  of  the  pleasures  and  rewards  that  are 
made  available  through  fruits? 

"For  the  gardens  bear  rich  fruits 
.  .  .  but  to  the  favored  few  who  dig  for  them." 

So  closely  allied  with  life  are  books  that  the  scope  of  books  may  be  compared  to  the 
ancients'  worship  of  the  dawn  with  all  its  possibilities,  for  may  it  not  be  said  of  the 
fine  art  of  literature  that  it  contains: 

"The  very  life  of  life 
.  .  .  all  the  varieties 
And  realities  of  existence. 
The  bliss  of  growth 
The  glory  of  action 
The  splendor  of  beauty, 
The  .  .  .  dreams  of  yesterday, 
The  visions  of  tomorrow." 


CHANGING  STANDARDS  IN  LITERATURE 

{Continued  from  Page  36) 
nearly  humanistic   relationship   toward  nature   and   country  people   than   any  important 
poet  in  a  long  time.     Willa  Cather  sees  man  struggling  with  nature  and  winning  out 
through  his  heroic  qualities.     Edna  Millay  perceives  clearly  the  dualistic  nature  of  man 
and  his  responsibility  for  his  own  destiny. 

These  individuals  I  have  not  discussed  because  they  do  not  belong  to  the  main  trend 
of  the  literature  of  today  and  I  have  had  time  for  the  main  trend  only.  With  them  I 
would  place  a  group  of  thinkers  and  critics — notably  Irving  Babbitt  and  Paul  Elmer 
More — who  have  tried  to  establish  a  humanistic  scale  of  values  in  place  of  the  present 
naturalistic  attitudes.  This  attempt,  as  I  have  endeavored  to  show,  has  more  than  a 
mere  literary  importance,  for  it  has  to  do,  in  the  last  analysis,  with  the  individual  prob- 
lem of  the  conduct  of  life.  In  the  direction  of  Humanism,  I  believe,  the  hope  of  the 
future  lies. 


FOUNDER'S  DAY  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD 

Sara  Cook,  '3  5 
Alumnae  Office  Assistant 

Once  more  the  students,  alumnae,  and  friends  of  Agnes  Scott  celebrated  Founder's 
Day.  We  feel  that  the  most  important  phase  of  this  celebration  is  the  annual  radio 
broadcast  over  WSB  which  brings  so  many  of  our  alumnae  and  friends  nearer  to  us. 
The  program  went  out  through  the  courtesy  of  WSB  from  five  to  five-thirty  o'clock 
on  February  22. 

We  are  glad  to  learn  that  the  program  carried  so  far.  We  have  had  reports  from 
Chicago,  New  Haven,  and  Orlando,  so  we  are  going  to  be  very  optimistic  and  hope 
that  at  some  time  in  the  near  future  our  program  will  reach  all  points — North,  East, 
South,  and  West. 

The  program  this  year  included:  A  Welcome  to  the  Alumnae  from  Miss  Hopkins;  A 
Message  from  the  Trustees  by  Mr.  George  Winship;  a  discussion  of  The  Building  Pro- 
gram of  Agnes  Scott,  by  Dr.  McCain;  A  Word  About  the  Alumnae  Week-End,  by 
Lucile  Alexander,  '11;  and  a  musical  program  arranged  by  Mr.  Lewis  H.  Johnson,  a 
member  of  the  Agnes  Scott  Music  Department. 

Miriam  Dean,  ex  '20,  accompanied  by  Mr.  C.  W.  Dieckmann,  member  of  the  Agnes 
Scott  Music  Department,  opened  the  program  with  a  solo,  "Homing,"  by  M.  D.  Del 
Riego.  The  triple  trio  from  the  Agnes  Scott  Glee  Club  also  participated.  The  members 
of  the  trio  are:  Virginia  Wood,  Augusta  King,  and  Jane  Clark,  Atlanta,  Ga.;  Alice 
Chamlee,  and  Nelle  Chamlee,  Canton,  Ga.;  Rosa  Miller,  Fort  Leavenworth,  Kan.;  Geral- 
ine  Young,  Angier,  N.  C. ;  Betty  Lou  Houck,  Bradenton,  Fla.;  and  Shirley  Christian, 
Chattanooga,  Tenn.  Evelyn  Wall,  of  Atlanta,  accompanied  the  triple  trio  for  their  first 
selection,  "The  Night  Wind,"  by  R.  Farley. 

This  radio  program  was  not  the  only  program  in  celebration  of  Founder's  Day  at 
Agnes  Scott  though,  for  various  groups  of  Agnes  Scott  boosters  celebrated  in  their  own 
way. 

Kate  Clark,  '13,  of  Montgomery,  Ala.,  was  hostess  for  the  great  event  on  February 
22,  with  an  enthusiastic  group  from  Montgomery,  Wetumpka,  and  Millbrook,  Ala., 
listening  in  to  the  broadcast. 

The  broadcast  went  over  well  in  Charlotte,  N.  C,  according  to  Pernette  (Adams) 
Carter,  '29,  recently  elected  president  of  the  Charlotte  Club,  which  has  been  reorganized 
on  a  new  system  based  upon  the  division  of  the  membership  into  groups  according 
to  the  time  in  college,  each  group  being  headed  by  a  key-member  who  is  responsible 
for  the  attendance  of  her  group.  A  telegram  from  some  of  these  alumnae  stated, 
"The  voices  of  Dr.  McCain  and  Miss  Hopkins  sound  as  pleasing  as  the  clink  of  a 
coin  in  a  blind  man's  cup." 

Polly  (Brown)  Bowers,  ex  '29,  writes  that  she  listened  to  the  Founder's  Day  broad- 
cast on  February  22,  all  alone  since  there  were  not  other  Hottentots  in  Kingsport,  Tenn. 
Nevertheless  she  got  that  homesick  feeling  we  all  get  when  we  gather  around  the  radio 
and  hear  the  sweet  voice  of  Miss  Hopkins  speaking  to  us  once  more  as  a  group  of  Agnes 
Scott  girls. 

In  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  the  Agnes  Scott  alumnae  were  invited  to  a  tea  at  the  home  of 
Emilie  (Ehrlich)  Strasburger,  '27.  Frances  (Stuart)  Key,  ex  '23,  secretary  of  the 
Knoxville  Club  reports  that  they  have  been  forced  to  discontinue  their  meetings  during 
the  past  year  but  that  they  hope  to  hold  regular  meetings  this  year. 

The  Mississippi  Agnes  Scott  Alumnae  Club  did  things  up  in  a  big  way  with  a  state 
meeting  at  Jackson.  They  celebrated  Founder's  Day  at  a  luncheon  at  the  Mary  Frances 
Tea  Room  in  Jackson.  The  luncheon  was  followed  by  a  formal  meeting  and  the  cele- 
bration ended  with  the  Founder's  Day  broadcast  over  WSB.    Shirley  (Fairly)  Hendrick 


46  The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 


'19,  Annie  Tait  Jenkins,  '14,  state  president;  and  Sarah  (Till)  Davis,  '22,  state  secre- 
tary, were  in  charge  of  the  arrangements  for  the  occasion. 

The  Atlanta  Agnes  Scott  Club,  the  Decatur  Agnes  Scott  Club,  and  the  Business  Girls' 
Group  of  the  Atlanta  Club  celebrated  Founder's  Day  with  a  dinner  at  the  Druid  Hills 
Golf  Club  on  Friday  evening  after  the  broadcast. 

The  Hendersonville,  N.  C,  alumnae  and  the  Tryon  alumnae  listened  in  to  the 
broadcast  at  the  home  of  Gladys   (Lee)   Kelly,  '11. 

Four  Agnes  Scott  alumnae  in  Troy,  Ala. — Sue  (McEachern)  Bean,  ex  '16,  Pearle 
(Waters)  Lee,  ex  '16,  Mary  (Enzor)  Bynum,  '13,  and  Charlotte  Smith,  '25,  enjoyed 
a  Founder's  Day  dinner  at  the  home  of  Mary  Bynum.  They  met  at  five  o'clock 
to  listen  to  the  broadcast,  which  Charlotte  says  made  them  downright  homesick  for 
Agnes  Scott.  After  dinner  they  spent  an  hour  swapping  stories,  and  Charlotte  says, 
"Mary  and  Pearle  were  reduced  to  giggling  in  the  true  school  girl  fashion  upon  recalling 
the  night  that  Pearle  (being  used  to  a  south  Alabama  climate)  simply  could  not  get 
warm  and  finally  resorted  to  using  newspapers  (in  addition  to  all  of  her  blankets)  which 
rattled  noisily  every  time  she  moved." 

According  to  Charis  (Hood)  Barwick,  '16,  Reba  Vinnedge,  ex  '24,  entertained  the 
Chicago  crowd  at  a  reunion  luncheon  on  Saturday,  February  23.  Martha  (Eakes) 
Matthews,  '24,  was  elected  president,  and  Lillian  (Beatty)  Schuhman,  '13,  secretary. 
Others  who  were  present  are:  Nell  Esslinger,  ex  '23;  Annette  (Carter)  Colwell,  '27; 
Marjorie  Daniel,  '31;  Helen  Duke,  '31;  Emmie  (Ficklen)  Harper,  '24;  Ruth  McDonald, 
'27;  and  Lois   (Bolles)   Knox,  '26. 

The  Birmingham  alumnae  met  at  the  Sixth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church  for  their 
Founder's  Day  banquet.    Anabel   (Stith)   Self,  ex  '23,  gave  a  reading. 

The  Chattanooga  alumnae  have  organized  a  regular  club,  meeting  for  the  first  time 
on  the  afternoon  of  Founder's  Day.    Rosemary  May,  '3  3,  made  arrangements,  and  will 
serve  as  chairman  for  this  group. 
,t  The  Baltimore  alumnae  met  for  tea  on  the  twenty-second. 

We  wish  to  thank  each  and  every  alumna  who  helped  to  make  Founder's  Day  cele- 
bration a  success  by  her  cooperation.  The  newspaper  notices  were  valuable  advertise- 
ment for  the  college,  and  we  appreciate  your  help  in  this  undertaking  too.  We  wish 
to  thank  particularly  those  who  took  time  to  write  and  those  who  sent  telegrams.  Under 
the  latter  heads  we  mention:  Ida  (Beckham)  Remfry,  ex  '97;  Annie  Tait  Jenkins,  '14;  Sa- 
rah (Till)  Davis,  '22;yShirley  (Fairly)  Hendrick,  '19^Elizabeth  (Watkins)  Hulen,  '19; 
s/Marguerite  (Watkins)  Goodman,  '21;  Susan  Glenn,  '32;  Charlie  Alexander,  '33;  Bella 
Wilson,  '34p£lizabeth  Hoke,  '23;vZou  (Woolford)  Raine,  '30;  Rosemary  May,  '33  Eliz- 
abeth (Grimm)  Sisk,  ex  '21;  Jane  Blair,  ex  '36;  Corrie  Blair,  ex  "i5;rfean  (Powel)  Mc- 
Croskey,  '09;  Margaret  (Briscoe)  McCallie,  ex  'll;i^Tmilie  (Ehrlich)  Strasburger,  '27; 
Mary  Ray  Dobyns,  '28H\ddie  (Boyd)  Pattillo,  Institute;  Mildred  (Holmes)  Dickert,  '14; 

VTorter  Cowles,  ex  '3  3;i^Raemond  Wilson,  '3  0; /•Sara  Glenn,  '2  8;  Virginia  Prettyman, 
'34^Laura  Ross,  ex  '34;  Dee  Robinson,  '32;  Gussie  Rose  Riddle,  '34;'Clyde  (McDaniel) 
Jackson,    'lOj^-Maude    (Shute)     Squires,    ex    '17,vMarion     (Symmes)    Candler,    special; 

^thel  (Rea)  Rone,  '19;  Maria  Rose,  '25;  Mary  (Keesler)  Dalton,  '25;HLouisa  Duls, 
'26;  Irene  Lowrance,  '28;VPernette  (Adams)  Carter,  '29Hvlildred  Greenleaf,  '30;  Belle 
Ward  Stowe,  '30;HVIiss  Jennie  Smith,  the  New  York  Alumnae,  the  Jacksonville  Alumnae, 
the  Washington,  D.  C,  Alumnae,  the  Chattanooga  Alumnae,  the  Montgomery  Alumnae, 
the  Hendersonville  Alumnae,  the  Tryon  Alumnae,  the  Charlotte  Alumnae, **Frankie 
(McCrory)  Armistead,  and  Mrs.  J.  E.  Lowe,  mother  orPearl  Lowe  (Hamner)  Betts,  '21; 
^<Betty  Hansen,  ex  '3  5  ;^>Iabel   (Ardrey)   Stewart,  Jujia   (Haygood)   Cuthberson. 


REGISTRATION  FOR  THE  FOURTH  ALUMNAE 

WEEK-END 


Guests 

Mrs.  C.  H.  Soutter 

Mrs.  Philip  T.  Murkett 

Mrs.  A.  H.  Warden 

Mrs.  John  Morton  Smith 

M.  R.  Thomson 

Luelle  Brand  Rollesten 

Mrs.  H.  C.  Phipps 

Mrs.  Devereaux  McClatchey,  Jr. 

Virginia  Watts  Beak 

Mrs.  Paul  D.  Bryan 

Mrs.  Henry  McGehee 

Mrs.  Cadesman  Pope 

Mrs.  George  W.  Suggs 

Dr.  Iva  M.  Miller 

Mrs.  Mac  Moore 

Mrs.  Edgar  Craighead 

Mrs.  Will  Co'e  Jones  • 

Mrs.  George  Hayes 

Mrs.  Philip  Davidson,  Jr. 

Mrs.  McQueen  Smith 

Mrs.  W.  S.  Beasley 

Mrs.  Henry  Robinson 

Miss  Emily  Laird 

Mrs.  Garrard 

Pauline  Branyon 

Mrs.  C.  H.  Pritchard 

Mrs.  F.  H.  Gaines 

Mrs.  John  M.  Smith 

Mrs.  Julius  Scott 

Mrs.  C.  0.  Wike 

Mrs.    Thomas    D.    White 

Mr.  Thomas  D.  White 

Mrs.  Dan  C.  Clarke 

Mrs.  Josiah  B.  Brennan 

Mabel  Geis 

Mrs.   Frank   Harwell 

Beulah  Chamlee 

Mrs.  P.  R.  Allen 

Mrs.  T.  N.  Fulton 

Mrs.  Lester  Petrie 

Mrs.  L.  P.  Skeen 

Mrs.  Clyde  Langford 

Faculty 

Miss  Annie  Mae  Christie 
Dr.  Catherine  Torrance 
Miss  Leslie  Gaylord 
Miss  Melissa  Cilley 
Miss  Ada  Page  Foote 
Dr.  T.  W.  Whitaker 
Dr.  S.  M.  Christian 

Alumnae 

Academy 
Mary  (Hubbard)   Teter 
Lucy  (Johnson)  Ozmer 
Susie  Johnson 
Jennie  Eva   (McDonald)   Duke 

Institute 
Annie  (Emery)  Flinn 
Emma  Wesley 
Susan  (Young)  Eagan 


Sue  Lou   (Harwell)    Champion 
Louise  (Scott)  Sams 
Ethel   (Alexander)   Gaines 
Edith   (Far linger)    Smith 

1910 
Eva  (Towers)  Hendee 
Eleanor    Frierson 
Lucy  (Reagan)  Redwine 

1911 
Adelaide  L.  Cunningham 
Julia   (Thompson)    Gibson 

1912 
Julia  Pratt  (Smith)   Slack 

1913 
Emma  Pope  (Moss)  Dieckmann 
ACie  (Candler)   Guy 

1914 
Martha  (Rogers)  Noble 
Helen   (Brown)   Webb 

1915 
Annie  Pope  (Bryan)  Scott 

1916 
Margaret  Phythian 
Clara   (Whips)   Dunn 
Maryellen  (Harvey)  Newton 

1917 
Mynelle  (Blue)  Grove 
Augusta  (Skeen)  Cooper 
Willie  Belle   (Jackson)   McWhorter 

1918 
Margaret  Leyburn 
Evamaie  (Willingham)  Park 
Belle  Cooper 

1919 
Llewe'lyn  Wilburn 
Lulu  (Smith)  Westcott 
Elizabeth   (Dimmock)   Bloodworth 

1920 
Helen  Williamson 
Margaret  (Bland)  Sewell 

1921 
Marguerite  (Cousins)  Holley 
Anne  (Hart)   Equen 
Eugenia  (Johnston)  Griffin 
Janef  Preston 
Mariwil  (Hanes)  Hulsey 
Gladys    (McDaniel)    Hastings 
Sarah  Fulton 

1922 
Helene  (Norwood)   Lammers 
Frances    (Stokes)    Longino 

1923 
Maybeth   (Carnes)   Robinson 
Sarah  Be'le  (Brodnax)  Hansell 
Jennye  (Hall)  Lemon 
Elizabeth   (Lockhart)    Davis 
Ethelyn  (Allen)  Warner 
Margaret  (Brenner)  Awtrey 
Beth  (Flake)  Cole 

1924 
Mary  (Mann)  Boon 
Frances    (Gilliland)    Stukes 
Rebecca    (Bivings)    Rogers 


48 


The     Agnes     Scott     Alumnae     Quarterly 


1925 

Margaret  (Rogers)  Law 
Elizabeth  (Woltz)  Currie 
Helen   (Lockhart)    Watkins 
Anne  McKay 
Ruth  Johnston 

1926 
Sarah  Slaughter 
Elizabeth   (Moore)   Harris 
Leone   (Bowers)   Hamilton 
Edythe  (Coleman)   Paris 
Hazel   (Huff)  Monaghan 
Rosalie  (Wootten)  Deck 
Olive  (Hall)  Shadgett 

1927 
Ellen  Douglas  Leyburn 
Louisa  (White)  Gosnell 
Katharine  (Gilliland)  Higgins 
Mary  (Weems)  Rogers 
Lelia  (Joiner)  Cooper 
Milred  (Cowan)  Wright 
Kitty  Johnson 

1928 
Eloise  Gaines 

Frances   (Craighead)   Dwyer 
Mary  Waller  Shepherd 

1929 
Katherine    (Hunter)    Branch 
Olive   (Spencer)   Jones 
Bettina  (Bush)  Carter 
Mary  (Warren)  Read 
Dorothy  Hutton 
Margaret  (Garretson)  Ford 
Gladys  Austin 
Mary  Prim 
Lillie  Bellingrath 
Elizabeth  (Moss)   Mitchell 

1930 
Bee  Miller 
Marie  Baker 

1931 
Julia  (Thompson)   Smith 
Elizabeth  Flinn 
Eunice  Lawrence 
Jean  (Grey)  Morgan 
Cornelia  Taylor 

1932 
Mary  Duke 

1933 
Page  Ackerman 
Laura  J.  Spivey 


Kitty  (Woltz)  Green 
Margaret  Telford 

1934 
Elinor  Hamilton 
Sarah  Austin 
Katherine  White 
Special 
Mrs.  Lawrence  Mansfield 

Children 
Page  Davidson,  11 
Miriam  Benedict,  11 
Billy  Lammers,  4 
Cecil  Lemon,  8 
Nancy  Quayle,  11 
Sam  Guy,  Jr.,  9 
Jeanne  Lemon,  10 
Toy  Watkins,  7 
Mary  Alice  Lemon,  11 
Ernest  Hulsey,  Jr.,  6 
Mynelle  Grove,  8 
Bertha  Grove,  8 
Betty  Moore  Harris 
Claudine  Gibson,  8Y2 
Graham  Grove 
Julia  Slack,  10 
Beth  Daniel,  10 
Philip  Davidson,  III,  7 
Bill  Crowell,  8 
Ann  Boon,  4 
Charles  McCain,  11 
Mildred  McCain,  9 
Anne  Hayes,  7 
Ellen  Hayes,  9 
Henry  Hayes,  4 
Judith  Hastings,  10 
Harry  Hastings,  6 
Anne  Robinson,  8 
Henry  Robinson,  5 
Jane  Anne  Newton,  9 
Reese  Newton,  6 
Louise  Quayle,  8 
Marian  Warner,  10 
Peggy  Awtrey 
Linton  Deck,  5% 
David  Deck,  4 
Adele  Dieckmann 
Flossie  Williamson 
Betty  Park,  12 
Fonville  McWhorter,  Jr.,  6V2 
Jack  Webb,  7 


TO  THE  ALUMNAE: 

This  issue  has  grown  out  of  requests  made  to  the 
Alumnae  Office  that  the  lectures  of  the  Alumnae 
Week-End  be  made  available  for  out-of-town  sub- 
scribers who  could  not  get  back  for  that  occasion, 
that  the  messages  of  the  Founder's  Day  radio  broad- 
cast be  printed  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  could  not 
get  the  program,  and  from  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
Office  for  all  alumnae  who  made  Dr.  McCain's  portrait 
possible  to  see  it  as  completed.  The  amount  of  copy 
curtailed  the  printing  of  the  usual  office  notes, 
bits  of  campus  news  and  personal  items.  Of  the 
latter,  many  have  come  into  the  office  through  the 
efforts  of  the  fine  corps  of  class  secretaries  who 
work  faithfully  for  each  issue.  These  personals  will 
appear  in  the  July  issue.  The  lectures  and  messages 
are  printed  in  their  natural  time  sequence  of  Feb- 
ruary 22  and  23.  It  is  our  hope  that  you  will  find  in 
them  new  encouragement  and  stimulation  to  study. 

The  Alumnae  Association  has  carried  a  number  of 
subscribers  of  the  1933-1934  session  for  the  last 
three  issues  of  the  magazine,  believing  that  these 
members  would  continue  their  memberships  with  us.  It 
is  with  real  discouragement  that  we  note  the  many  who 
have  not  responded  to  our  appeals  for  dues.  If  you  are 
of  that  number,  please  let  us  hear  from  you  at  once. 
This  is  the  last  issue  that  will  be  mailed  to  you,  if 
your  1934-1935  membership  is  not  paid. 

This  is  your  publication,  and  we  welcome  your  sug- 
gestions as  to  makeup  and  content.  As  requests 
brought  about  this  issue,  so  other  requests  v/ill  be 
met  in  the  future.  Let  us  have  your  reaction  to  the 
Quarterly. 

Expressing  the  hope  of  seeing  you  on  the  campus 
this  spring,  and  with  every  good  wish  from  Agnes  Scott, 

Sincerely, 

DOROTHY  HUTTON,  '29 

General  Secretary 
Agnes  Scott  Alumnae  Association. 


FOR  REFERENCE 


NOT  TO  BE  TAKEN  FROM 
THIS  ROOM